


Don't Think Hank Done It This Way

by SoniaVice



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Nashville Predators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:29:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5059438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoniaVice/pseuds/SoniaVice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Moses has one shot at the NHL after three years playing in Finland.      </p>
<p>Pekka Rinne is funny and charming, very attractive, and way, way too tall.  Steve does not hook up with tall guys, and he never hooks up with guys who make him feel like Rinne does. He is determined to resist the man's magnetic pull because, if he gives in, he knows he can't go halfway, and the idea of giving himself up completely scares him to death.  </p>
<p>So does trying to make it in the NHL, but he's doing that anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The lovely art is by [asmallbluedot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/asmallbluedot/pseuds/asmallbluedot). [Art post--don't forget to go leave some kudos or a comment.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5081934)
> 
> Dramatic licence has been taken where necessary and romantic histories revised to fit the story. 
> 
> Steve Moses' family is completely fictional. I'm not actually sure his full name is Steven, but I'm going with it. 
> 
> Attitudes depicted by characters about religion and other weighty matters, should be seen as fictional only.
> 
> This story contains:  
> * brief Steve/OFC and Steve/OMC  
> * references to past infidelity  
> * depictions of and references to negotiated power dynamics in sex  
> * discussion of negotiated consent issues in sex  
> * brief discussion of the sexual assault accusation against Mike Ribeiro and other players' responses  
> * depiction and references to sexual shame, gender performance and sexuality  
> * discussion of religion and addiction
> 
> * * *

[](http://i.imgur.com/iKYOCwD.jpg)

**Steve Moses — Pekka Rinne — Kevin Fiala**  


* * *

  


#### Ostrava, Czech Republic - May, 2015

The US. team had the day off before they faced the Swiss, and most of the guys were on a bus tour of the city, strung tight together like kindergarten kids tied to a rope. Steve had ducked out and gone for a walk to explore on his own. He'd been in Ostrava long enough to find his way around a little, and it was summer there, or close enough for him. 

He found shopfront bar adjacent to a park full of seats in the sunshine, and he joined the lineup of mostly young people waiting to order food. When it was his turn, he smiled, led with the politely worded apology for only speaking English and acquired a beer and a sausage on a bun that smelled like heaven. 

He found a seat at a long table next to a crowd of people talking and laughing and enjoying their lunch. It was familiar, letting the voices wash over him. The white noise of a language he didn't know was soothing, the occasional clang of English almost annoying. He watched people come and go and didn't regret escaping from the team for one day. It wasn't how you were supposed to act, but sometimes he just needed to be himself. 

A guy a few tables away caught his eye. He looked familiar more than interesting, and Steve tried to figure out why. The guy probably just looked like someone he knew, but he couldn't place him. He stopped watching the guy, not wanting to give the wrong impression; he looked like a kid anyway. 

What he he should have been doing was a little research on the Swiss team, their opponent in the quarters, but he was enjoying the day, and, dammit, that's who the guy was. 

Steve looked over, but the guy was gone. He looked around quick, stood up to get a better view, not that that gave him a sightline over many heads, but it helped enough, and there he was, winding his way up to the counter. Steve cut the angle and aimed to meet him at the end of the line. 

Up close, there was no mistake. "You're Kevin right? Kevin Fiala?" Steve said, smiling, trying to look harmless and friendly.

"Um, yeah," Kevin said. Looking around and then settling his eyes on Steve again. They were nearly of a height, which made Kevin an awesome guy as far as Steve was concerned. He smiled a little wry at the thought, stuck his hand out and said, "Steve, Steve Moses." He got a blank look, and he laughed, genuinely amused, and added, "I'm on your team now. You know, the one in Nashville?"

"Oh, oh," Kevin ran out of words, or English words, but he had enough blood to blush red with. 

"Buy you a beer?" Steve said.

"Oh, yes, okay. Maybe I should order. You like Czech beer? Pilsner? Or American?"

"Czech is good." 

They were up next, and Kevin spoke rapidly to the barman and they got two beers, and Steve only needed a little help with the money. 

They found seats together, and Kevin sipped his beer and looked around a little shifty. "Maybe we are not supposed to be friendly?"

"I won't be tomorrow, I promise," Steve said with a grin. The kid looked very serious, but he cracked half a smile. "I ducked out on the team tour of the city today, so what's one more rule broken?"

"Ostrava is beautiful, nice place."

"Right, you guys just got here didn't you?"

"We did yes, today. I will tell you the truth, I was tired of being translator for the team, and some of the guys, they have not so good German, so I would have to do English, and bah, too much work. Roman, he said I should get away for a day, was good advice. He is good guy—you should meet him."

"I guess I will tomorrow. I hope I can get behind him instead of meeting him."

Kevin frowned and then smiled when he got it, shook his head. "No, no, not possible."

"You keep that in mind about Jonesy too—you know him, right?"

"I do, yes. I played only two games with the team. Only a few days in Nashville at camp, and then I went to—" he glowered while he said, "Milwaukee," awkward and slow. 

"Oh, man, you are so lucky you didn't end up in Boston."

"Why?"

"Massachusetts," Steve said and Kevin scowled. 

"People think Czech is a funny language. German. They are wrong. America is the place where all these words are impossible."

"Finland," Steve said.

"Okay, yes, that I agree. Sweden was okay. I could figure out things written down sometimes right away. You like it in Finland?"

"I liked playing," Steve said. "I was homesick always, but Jokerit is a good team. Last year was something."

"Yes, KHL? Russia? Is—was it different a lot to the Finnish league?"

"Very, very different. I liked it. It wasn't everyone playing the same system, and may the best passers win, you know?"

"Oh, yes, I know that one. You should not say that to a Finn, I think. Swedes will laugh. We had lots of those last year, it was good."

"Swedes? In the AHL?"

"Yes in Milwaukee." He struggled a little less with the word "Maybe I won't need to say this name, maybe I will be in Nashville. Also, everyone calls it MKE which is easier."

"You going home after this tournament?"

"I have prospect camp in Nashville for July, and then, my dad, he thought maybe I should come home, but I think it would be better to be in America, make them know I am serious, you understand? There is training space in MKE in summer, but I want to stay in Nashville." He shrugged. "If they let me, I think I should go early for the prospect camp."

"Not a bad idea. Keep tuned in to the team, be ready for training camp." Getting them to see you as a serious worker was always a good thing when you weren't a big guy.

"You go home for the summer? Where is this?"

"Yeah, I go home. Massachusetts," he said, rolling out the word because getting Kevin to frown was already one of his favourite things. He had a hell of a scowl. 

"Is that far from Nashville? I don't know where anything is. It was a shock how long the plane rides were for games."

"Yeah, it's pretty far, east coast, near Boston."

"If you wanted to come to MKE, I think they would let you—but maybe you don't want to—it's not, maybe it's not proper to go where the Admirals guys are? I don't know exactly how it works."

"Neither do I," Steve said. The kid wasn't wrong; if he had a big ego about it, he'd think it was beneath him to go hang with an AHL team, but he'd never had that problem. Any advantage he could get, he'd take. 

It wasn't the worst idea ever, training with this kid who was going to be a star and who only had a couple of inches on him. If he got to know some other guys, even career Ads guys, it would make him part of the group. He could get his agent to ask discreetly, find out what the team thought about it.

"I might show up, Kevin. I want to go home for a while after we're done here, but you never know. Too bad Rinne won't be there, I'd like to get some more by him."

"You scored on him!" Kevin said. "Yes, this I heard. Was he angry? He seems so—I don't know, so big! I was trying to be serious at practice, last year, in camp and then later in the playoffs, you understand? And he would talk to us, you know, on a rush, he would say things, and it put me off! I was so frustrated."

"Aw, he's just a goalie. Finland is full of them. He didn't look very happy when I scored on him, but I was." He grinned thinking of it. It had been the perfect way to make a splash at a tournament most NHL teams ignored. "I can't wait for training camp and the chance to do it again. That's what you should be telling yourself."

"I know," Kevin said, "I know. It will be better next year. I'm not the new guy." Kevin grinned at him, and Steve shook his head. He was too old to be a rookie, but he was, and he better get used to it. He might get hazed by the guys, take lots of flak from Rinne. He'd have to put up with it, up to a point, but he hoped to give Rinne lots of new excuses to be annoyed with him.

He had games to play first, and he ended up with a bronze medal to shove in his suitcase. And then it was time to go pack up his life in Helsinki, maybe for the last time. He'd loved it at times, but he sincerely hoped to never go back to Finland.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve went to Milwaukee for two weeks in the heat of summer. It was gorgeous—big skies, hot summer sun, and the city was small enough to be easy to find things in. It was good to reconnect with Kevin, who was taking a break from working out in Nashville, and the other guys he met were all good guys, hard-workers. 

They had informal icetime, no one really running it, so they could do what they wanted. He played with Kevin a lot, a Canadian guy named Col who'd come down to work out with them and an American named Austin. He and Kevin were, he thought, fantastic together, but an NHL team might be afraid to put two little guys on a line together. Col was a nice big centre, if they had one of those, and the Preds must have lots of those, they could really do something. They'd just signed another one at the deadline, and Steve had an inkling Cody Hodgson might be the guy he needed to get to know.

The guys were kids, and they wanted to play as much as they wanted to work, all but Kevin. Steve was used to a tougher routine, but they played hard, so it was fine for a few weeks. His third day there, the guys skipped out of their workout early to go to the beach. It was hot and the sky was blue, they'd succeeding in getting Kev to take a break with them, and the water seemed to stretch on forever. Why the hell not?

The beach was right in the city practically, and it was wide, clean and well populated. They attracted attention easily, and Steve found it flattering and funny. The guys were like strutting roosters, soaking up the looks from the girls of all ages like it was all that kept them alive. Kevin even managed to look sure of himself. 

Steve attracted three guys who wanted to talk lifting routines. He left his boys to their fun, and settled on the edge of a beach volleyball court and talked sets and reps with them. They weren't athletes, just full-time gym rats, and they cared about looks more than Steve did, but he could do this talk in his sleep, and it beat trying to talk to the too-young girls Kevin and the guys had clustered around them.

"Hey, you play?" a guy called over from the court, lifting his chin at Steve.

"Not really, I mean I know how, but—"

"You're in," the guy said.

Steve could have argued, but it looked like a hell of a workout, so he yanked off his shirt and toed off his sandals and left them with the others piled on the sand. 

They played a doubles match against two guys who were both worse than Steve, so they won easily. 

"Told you I wasn't very good," Steve said when his partner had to dive in and bail him out to get match point.

"Nah, you're okay," he said. "Name's Al, by the way, and sorry for shanghaiing you, but my usual guy bailed on me."

"Why me?" Steve asked.

"You looked tougher than those other guys. You're too short, but..." Al shrugged.

"Beggars can't be choosers."

"I don't beg," Al said with a cocky grin. "Hey, listen, this is the open tourney, you aren't going to freak if girls play, are you? Because some guys get all weird about it."

"Not weird about women, no," Steve said.

"Weird about men?" Al asked quietly, coming in close and looking down at Steve with a serious face.

"Not weird, Al, no."

Al grinned at him, and their next opponents were up, so they hit the sand. The tourney was set up so you played until you were beat or you'd won three in a row and got a rest. The winners, if they stuck around, got matched up for the next round. Eventually there would be two or three teams left and they'd play off for the title. The grand prize was a gift card for a restaurant down the beach. 

He and Al won their three, and they had time on the sidelines while a few more winners accumulated to rehydrate and discuss tactics. Al said, "You're freaking me out, man. How high you can jump? You got springs in your fucking legs?"

"I wanted to be a basketball player," Steve said, totally deadpan. "I worked hard, but in the end I had to give it up." 

"Fuck off," Al said, after a satisfyingly long pause. "What do you really do?"

"Hockey."

"Holy shit, really? I guess the quick hands had to come from somewhere."

They won their three again, but lost in the next playoff round. Steve pulled his shirt back on and stuck his feet back in his shoes. 

"My brother is coming to meet me. Late," Al said. "He was the partner who bailed. You should stick around and say hi, and we can grab a beer over at Shakey's."

"I'm actually here with some guys," Steve said, looking around to see if he could spot them. He couldn't ask them to go for a beer, this wasn't Europe. "I think they're mostly underage though. Shit. Yeah, let me text them, they're busy letting girls look at their abs anyway."

"Underage?" Al said.

"Hockey team. One of the guys invited me to train with them. They're okay. A little immature, but if you can't handle that you don't last in this game long."

Al's brother showed up. "Call me Pete," he said, with a very warm smile for Steve, which prompted an unapologetically smug look from Al. He'd been set up and hadn't even realized. Al obviously liked pushing people around, and expected them to take it with a smile.

Shakey's was a beach bar full of guys their age trying to act as young as the kids getting carded and turned away. Full of women too. Steve made a point of being friendly to the two women beside them at the bar—not so friendly he'd give them the wrong idea, but enough that Al and Pete would realize they hadn't quite got the measure of him. 

"I'll just text the guys," Steve said when they got a table. "If Kevin gets fed up and runs out of English, he might want to bail." He likely wouldn't, his English had taken leaps over the few weeks he'd been in the States, but Al's smugness was still rubbing him the wrong way, and he wanted an out clause.

"Runs out of English?" Pete said.

"Yeah, he's from Europe." 

The first beer had gone down too easy, and he was contemplating a second. If you called the first, the first, you'd already decided, he decided. Al, unsubtly volunteered to go off for the next round, and he smiled at Pete and looked him over. 

"Look, Steve," Pete said, leaning in to talk under the general level of conversation. "Al's an asshole, but he's my brother, so I put up with him. He thinks I need a boyfriend. He's wrong."

"I wasn't applying for the job, and I'm only in town for a week or so." And he wasn't coming back—he refused to admit he might not make it. It was Nashville or nothing—back to Finland, maybe, but he wasn't looking for an AHL career at this point in his life. 

Pete seemed suddenly much more interested, and Steve grinned at him over the last warm dregs of his beer. 

He wasn't looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend either. He'd spent the afternoon looking at Al in nothing but a pair of baggy shorts, and it hadn't gotten him excited, not that it should have—he'd seen too many hard bodies to be turned on by just that. Pete wore much less baggy shorts and a very tight t-shirt that told the world he went to the gym but made time for other things too. It also told the world he had a piercing in his left nipple. 

"I'm staying in a motel with Kevin," Steve said. 

"This is the guy who sometimes can't speak English?"

"He's a kid, Pete, and a teammate, that's it."

Al rushed up to their table with their beers and a story about a girl at the bar that might even have been true. He dropped an unsubtle wink into the space between Steve and Pete and took off. 

Steve started on the fresh, cold beer and contemplated Pete. He had hair that colour between blond and brown that defied a name, and his skin was tanned, but not like he worked outdoors, more like he might be tanned all over from a sunbed. Milwaukee had long cold winters, and in a place like that, you fought off the winter blues however you could. It might get him hook-ups too, just to satisfy the curiosity— _was_ there a tan line anywhere? 

Half the fun of hooking up was curiosity. The other half was obviously the getting off, but if there was no question to be answered, no lines to find or not find, why bother? With hockey players, Steve found the question was often how far would they go? Do they want their dick sucked but aren't looking to pay it back? With guys who were gay, out, comfortable, guys like Pete, the question got flipped around, and it was usually how far would _Steve_ go? 

He couldn't tell if Pete would be into things he wasn't interested in doing; you usually couldn’t, but it might be worth the risk to find out how sensitive his nipples were or if he'd just got the piercing for looks. 

Steve took a drink, a long one, tilting the bottle up, working his throat. He watched Pete watching him, and his eyes, a hazy hazel shade of something neither blue nor brown, got serious and hungry. 

"I live with Al," Pete said, "in a shitty two bedroom, but we have a deal."

Steve got his phone out and checked for messages. He had one from Kevin that he thought said they were going to a party and did he want to come. Kevin had gone big on text-speak since his English spelling was terrible anyway. Steve sent him a short note, to the point, saying he was hooking up and he'd be home later. 

"Why don't you trigger the clause in your deal that gets us a couple of hours alone," Steve said. 

Pete pushed his own phone into a tight pocket, the rectangle clearly visible a few inches from his clearly visible bulge. "I already did."

Pete did have sensitive nipples. He was also pushy, not a surprise—with a brother like Al, he could be ten types of asshole and still be the nice one—but he wasn't _too_ pushy. He liked giving as well as receiving, and he showed no surprise or disappointment that Steve wasn't looking to fuck. If Steve had liked him just a bit more, he might have considered it, but he wasn't into it enough to look at his bland face while he gave it up. 

Pete suggested they eat after they'd had fun, which was a convenient way to fill the time while they waited to see if Al was going to get lucky or not. Al texted Pete when he was leaving the bar—not for home—and Pete stood up and shucked off his shorts and said, "I don't know about you, but I'm up for another round."

Steve wasn't, not quite, but he could get there easily enough. He sucked Pete right where he was standing until he stepped away, complaining he wanted to make it last. 

They relocated, and Pete worked him over, trying to drive him crazy by making it last, which wasn't really his thing. It was Pete that asked him if he wanted two fingers up his ass while he was down there, which really was, and he said yes even though it risked revealing too much.

"Oh, yeah, you like that," Pete said, pulling his mouth off with a pop, and thrusting harder with his hand. "Can you come from just this? Yeah, I bet you can, fuck, I could come from looking at your fucking six pack, holy shit."

Neither of those things turned out to be true. They both needed a little helping hand to get to the finish line. 

Kevin was tucked up in bed like a good boy when Steve made it home; the kid knew the morning run came early. Steve felt too good to feel guilty, and the afternoon of volleyball had been a great workout. Pete had been fun. It had been a good day. 

They had a quiet run in the morning, and Kevin looked a little worse for a night out. Steve didn't ask for details; if the kid wanted to cut loose a little, he was picking the right time for it. 

They hit the gym at the training centre later in the day, and Steve put his head down and worked hard. He was at the point of the summer where he liked to ramp up the workouts, and he had collected a reputation as a serious guy with the weights. The guys liked to quiz him on what he was doing and why. 

He considered his audience; most of them were bigger guys, so he explained things. "I did okay at the World Championships, sure, but I don't think the NHL is going to be like playing in the KHL was. I _know_ it's not going to be like the Liiga. I don't want to get killed."

Kevin frowned and looked down at his arm as he flexed with a weight. He wasn't naturally scrawny like some kids his age were, never able to pack on the muscle while they were still growing, and he'd obviously gained some bulk in Nashville. 

"Do what your trainers tell you, Kev, and don't worry about it. You and me both need speed as much as we need to be tough little fucks."

"All I do is eat," he said mournfully, and a couple of the guys laughed at him. He shrugged and went back to work. He was good at shrugging off things that other guys got bugged by. A good skill to have in hockey. A good skill to have in hockey in a strange country too. 

"So who all did you play with last year?" Steve asked.

"I played one game only in Nashville, and then one more in the playoffs."

"I meant here," Steve said.

"Oh, yes, Col, a little, and there were two guys, Swedes, they were easy to play with, familiar, yes? We were good, I think."

"That sounds good. Not a lot of Finns though, on the team. You can't play Finnish systems here anyway."

"No, no," Kevin said, scandalized at the idea. "Was it hard going to KHL? I think it would be."

"Worked for me. The speed of the game opened the ice up and made us all think. Some of the goaltending was horrible, not what you get in the Liiga, but some was amazing."

"Of course, there is that one Finn on the team," Kevin said with a grin. "You think he's forgiven you yet?"

"He's not that sort is he?" Steve asked. He didn't think that was Rinne's rep, but you never knew with the big stars and their big egos. And Finnish goalies came in several varieties of weird. 

"I don't know," Kevin said. "I didn't really talk to him." 

"You're hot shit, Fiala, and don't forget it. He's just some guy who flops around on the ice well."

Kevin laughed like he thought he shouldn't and went back to paying attention to his workout, so Steve did too.

They all went to eat together most days. The other guys had a circuit of places they liked, and Steve just went along for the ride. He was the highest paid of them, Kevin some pocket change behind him on paper, but he'd been drawing AHL money along with the rest of the guys, so they ate at the sort of places he was used to from college, the kind of joint where all the servers knew them and they had a favourite table that was kept open for them.

"How long are you staying?" Kevin asked him at dinner. 

"Just until the end of the week. I'm supposed to meet a friend and his brothers for a week. Plus, I've got to get sorted out in Nashville, find a place to live, shit like that." He would have told Kevin his friend was James van Riemsdyk if they'd been alone, but he wasn't into rubbing it in with the other guys about his famous former roommate. James was still a little pissed he'd signed in Nashville and not Toronto, but Steve had thought Nashville's thin offence gave him a better shot. "We'll all catch up at camp."

"Yes, that will be good. Coming in cold at the end last year was hard."

"Your parents coming over?"

"I think yes, maybe preseason, you know, we will see how it goes, but my dad, he wants to watch me play."

Steve grinned to think of it. "Mine too. My mom is planning the trip already, I'll guarantee."

They drifted apart outside the restaurant—the guys who lived local heading to their shared house, he and Kevin to the motel they were sharing a room in. 

He had a text from Pete telling him to call Al if he wanted to play volleyball again. He was tempted; it had been fun and a good workout, but he didn't want anyone thinking he was ever having a thing with Pete. He worried it around in his mind sitting on the bed. He should go to bed, should be ready for another day on the ice the next day. He thumbed in a note to Pete to ask for Al's number. He was surprised to get an answer back promptly, just the number. 

He got a second text a minute later that said, "Call me if you want. Last day send off."

He was relieved. He'd been worried that he'd hit it off too well with Pete. He'd let himself go a little more than he usually did with a hook-up, showed too much, but it had been fun, easy in the good way. 

He called Al, and he picked up right when Kevin came in from a trip out for nutritionally sound snacks. Or hamburgers, by the smell. Steve looked up, hopeful, and Kevin begrudgingly handed him one. "Hey Al," he said, "I hear you want another go?"

"Yeah, that's what he said," Al said, and laughed at his own joke. "Seriously, dude, you're better than Pete, and he's busy most afternoons. You want to go again in a couple days?"

"Sure, we're hitting the ice tomorrow, but day after's good. I had fun."

"Yeah and everyone thinks you're easy pickings 'cause you're short, so that's cool. Okay, show up at two, maybe a little early, and we'll see if we can get deeper."

"Okay, will do." Steve ended the call and looked seriously at Kevin. 

"What?" Kevin said. He looked all teenager, none of the serious man he could be on the ice. 

Steve should leave it, but he was a stubborn fuck, and he liked the kid, didn't want to lie to him, wanted to know if it would be a problem. Dumb. He should just leave it. "Nothing," he said. 

They were flying on the ice, clicking. Col was more than just a big guy, he had something. Whether that made him big league material, who knew, but he was good enough to get Kevin moving at top speed. Kevin at top speed showed you why he'd been drafted so high. Steve could keep up, but he could see the day, plain as if you showed him a highlight reel from the future, when Kevin would fly right away from him and he'd be left in the snow. 

"What are you guys doing tomorrow?" Col asked.

"Going to the beach again," Steve said. 

"Day off already?" Col said, shaking his head in mock disgust.

"No, man, I met this guy—we played volleyball, and we're going again. Great workout, better cardio than running."

"I thought you met some girl," Col said. 

"Yeah, that was later," Steve said, trying to shut that right down with a tone that took no shit. It bugged him, though. Not Col really, but Kevin, lying to him. Kevin came to him when he got lost trying to read something, when he forgot a word and needed to pace around and go off in German or Czech just for the feel of the words flowing like they were meant to. It felt like trust that he did that. 

He worried over it at supper. His mother would sigh at him, tell him to go _do_ something, like she always did when he brooded. He thought she was right, and when the older guys suggested they all hit a bar, he was tempted a little, but Kevin wasn't interested in trying to scam his way in or get a fake ID, so they drove back to the motel in the car Steve had rented. 

"Kevin, I want to tell you something," Steve said, because just telling him was doing something more useful than sitting on the bed and fretting.

"Okay."

"I didn't hook up with a woman the other night."

"Okay?" Kevin looked attentive, like Steve was his coach or something. It made him a little worried for the kid; he seemed to shut his brain off when someone he trusted was telling him things.

"I hooked up with a guy."

"Oh." Kevin looked stunned, as if the idea had never occurred to him. He should be pleased; it was how he wanted it, how he'd kept it in Finland, mostly. It was how he'd kept it in college, mostly. "Okay," Kevin said firmly.

"Are you sure? Because if you're weird about it, I mean, that's okay. I don't—I like you, think you're a good kid, and I wanted you to know. Didn't want to make shit up."

"But isn't that trouble?" Kevin frowned and shook his head, held up his hand. "Wrong words. Hard for you. In the NHL?"

"Might be," Steve said. "I date women too, sometimes. I had a girlfriend in college for a while, but that didn't survive three years in Finland."

"No, no," Kevin said. "My dad, he said—and good advice, I think—he said don't get serious in Sweden."

"You had fun though? Did things that weren't serious?" Kevin grinned and blushed, and that was answer enough. "Swedish girls, huh? Make you turn that colour?"

"Finnish girls?" Kevin countered. "Boys, maybe?" He blushed again, but it was a hell of a thing for a kid his age to be so easy with it. 

"Russians," Steve countered. "A few times. And yeah, Finns. Tourists—you wouldn't think it, but people go to Helsinki in the winter for fun."

"Jönköping too." Kevin nodded, like he knew all about the craziness of tourists. "It's a bit like here. Big lake. I don't think they skate on the lake here though, maybe not cold enough to freeze always, but people did there."

He sounded a little sad, like maybe he missed it. Life was simpler in the Liiga. Sweden would be the same—no big road trips, all the teams played a similar style with not so much hard hitting. Not so much money to make people crazy. The KHL was all about the road trips, the crazy money and new definitions of cold. "No ice in Nashville," Steve said, surprised at the regret he heard in his voice. 

"It gets cold sometimes, the guys said. Snows a little. But not like Sweden. Or here."

It seemed like everything was okay, the kid was okay, not weird about it at all.

It stayed okay. He hung out with Al a couple times, brushed off his unsubtle attempts to get him to take Pete more seriously. He hooked up with Pete his last night, and Kevin cracked a joke when he came crawling home at dark o'clock that he wasn't teaching very good things to such an impressionable rookie.

He went straight to Minnesota, and he was almost sorry to leave. Hanging out with James, his brothers and a few of their friends was jarring after the guys in MKE. The workouts were harder, and no one ever skipped off to the beach, but the rest of the time, he was the odd man out. He'd gotten used to Kevin's mix of intensity and sweetness, and he missed it.

James and his crew were all old college boys, and so was Steve; he'd been just like them when he'd left for Finland. He'd fit in just fine when he'd come home in the past. But they were brash and harsh and crude. They competed over everything, never dropped their poses and postures. He'd never been that kind of guy, but he'd been surrounded by them, had never really minded them, and had benefited from their gaucheness by seeing his star rise with women when they went too far. 

That trick still worked. He went out with James, Trevor and one other guy to a bar and he watched eyes pass over him and land on James, but it wasn't long before he had all the attention he could want. Keeping your mouth shut was sometimes the best way to get positive attention. 

Her name was Alicia, and she was blonde and tan and loved how she looked in a mirror almost as much as Pete had. No piercing, but her nipples were very sensitive, and she appreciated his attention to detail. She appreciated how he asked what she wanted. He appreciated everything she did because she had a tongue that knew how to work. 

"I like you," she said when they were cooling off, and he was wondering about round two. "You're very polite."

He laughed and rolled over and looked at her face. Her eyes were that colour of blue that made him think of the big American sky in full summer, deep dark blue. Finnish blue was paler, a northern sky. Hers were probably contacts. He grinned at her, more at his own lack of romance than anything, but he knew he looked friendly when he tried, and she responded. "You want me to be less polite?" he said. "Now that we know each other a little?"

"What were you going to be rude about?" she asked coyly.

"You pick," he said. 

"What if I want to be rude?"

"Mmm, go for it." 

Famous last words. He ended up flat on his back while she proved she didn't shirk in the gym. She had beautiful muscles in her thighs. And other places. She rudely wrung him dry, and it was fantastic.

"If you're ever in town again, give me a call," she said when she left him.

He would be in town again for games against the Wild. But would he be a story? Would Alicia see his face, and be surprised?

He hadn't given it a thought that now, in America, he might be recognized. Not yet, maybe not ever, maybe only in Nashville. But it would be strange. His fame, not dramatically large, had been confined to Helsinki where hockey playing stars were loved sometimes, but not adored too much. And there, he'd been a novelty for his Americanness—are you sure you're not Canadian, was the second most commonly asked question—and his height.

He left Minnesota burdened with no regrets and headed home. He'd bought a house not far from his parents so he had a reason to not think of Finland as permanent. He had believed it would be a place he'd live with his girlfriend, and they'd tried to be together while apart, but it became obvious their relationship was nothing but proximity. They'd been good together, but there wasn't anything there when they weren't, and he'd been relieved in the end, more than he should have been if there had ever really been anything to their relationship. 

He'd felt a little trapped, pressured, as if he was living the life he was supposed to want with a girl who was appropriate—good-looking, good family, she had a job, but wasn't too ambitious and, crucially, she was a girl. It was his mother who'd asked him before Finland, when he'd contemplated buying a ring, if he was doing what he thought he _should_ do instead of what he wanted. His mother knew him better than he did himself sometimes. 

She had spies too, because he was only home two hours when she called. "Are you up for a visit, Steven, or are you still getting settled in?"

"I'm not really settling in much, Mom. I've got to get to Nashville in a couple of weeks and sort out things there."

"So you're coming over?" She said.

"Are you cooking?"

"Your father has a whole scheme in hand that involves steaks, so no, I'm not cooking."

"That sounds good—how do steaks need scheming though?"

"You know him, if a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing repeatedly. He wants to determine the perfect grilled steak. Tonight it's blue cheese and black pepper."

"I've had that, it's good. You hate blue cheese, though."

"I've reminded him," she said. Steve grinned at her long suffering tone, it was their thing, they fought over food and cooking all the time. He figured they'd channelled every bit of resentment that living with someone for decades could cause into long and endless discussions about how long to cook pasta and the proper technique to mash potatoes. 

"I'll be over in a bit. I want to sort out some stuff here before I get involved in training and forget."

He filled a few hours finding the things he wanted to send to Nashville out of what he'd shipped home from Finland. It didn't amount to much; his possessions had never grown because he'd always been aware that he wasn't living in Helsinki, not really, and he'd kept a curb on buying anything much beyond winter clothes warm enough for some of the more brutal Russian cities they travelled to. 

He'd seen more of the world in the last year than he'd ever expected to. And now he was going to Tennessee to play hockey in Music City. Not something he'd ever expected either.

Two weeks at home was long enough. He knew that for sure ten minutes into his first visit with his folks. His mother interrogated him about Helsinki with probing questions that came at what she wanted to know sideways. "Ask what you want to ask, Ma," he said in exasperation. His dad snickered and then hastily found some reason to escape to the kitchen. 

"You shouldn't live your life alone, Steven, I know Finland was temporary, but—"

"All hockey is temporary. There's, like, a handful of guys who know they'll play out their careers where they're sitting. I'm never going to be that guy."

"I will admit I wasn't a big fan of Carole, and it wasn't her, really—she's a nice girl, but I never thought you should—oh, for heaven's sake, Steven, I thought maybe you would have found a boyfriend by now."

"What?" Steve sat back, stunned, but it faded fast. His mother did know him, and he'd been less than discreet a few times in his teens.

"Steven. We know. We have for a long time—and I understand why, in that hockey world, you might think finding a girl is a good idea, but—" She looked at him assessing him, like maybe she wondered if he could handle the truth, and he was more than a little pissed off by that. He was also freaked out by the whole conversation. One his dad had to be able to hear, had to have known was coming. 

"Just hit me with it, Mother," he said, coldly. "I think I can take it. 

"Fine, be a big prickly thing. I can take that," she said archly. "When you were younger, it was always the boys you fell for, for real. You had girlfriends who were pretty and fun and very nice, but you loved boys with your whole heart—even if they weren't your boyfriend."

"Wow." He'd never had a boyfriend, never had a relationship with any man. He'd had sex with—when he allowed himself to think about it—kind of a lot of guys, but Carole had been his only serious try at coupling up. He rubbed his face and looked over at the doorway to the silent kitchen. "Okay, there was sort of a girl in Finland—it was one of those she wanted more and I didn't things, but—"

"Yes, and that fellow on your team?"

"There was nothing going on! We're friends."

"I am aware of that, and this is the law of averages at play, Steven, what are the chances any given man you meet is gay? But don't try to tell me that if he had been—"

"Yeah, okay, I—you're not wrong. But come on, I'm not going to Nashville and finding Mr. Right. That's like—no way, not there. And by the way, you can take the woman out of the classroom, but you can't take the math teacher out of the woman."

She smiled at him smugly and folded her hands in her lap in unconscious primness, his mom the schoolmarm. All she needed was a bonnet and a calico dress, and she could be radicalizing the prairie. She said seriously, "Steven, you have a whole life to live, not just the part of it on the ice, and you know I'm going to hit you with the cliché: I just want you to be happy."

"Yeah, Mom, I know. I want that too. Um. I told Kevin. That—about the guys thing, the girls thing."

"You could go with the word bisexual, dear—it's already there, ready to be used. If that's how you see yourself."

"It sounds like you don't." 

"I'm not presuming, Steven, truly I'm not, but you liked Carole, you didn't love her. Maybe that was because she wasn't right for you. Maybe it means something more. How did Kevin take this? Is it different for a boy like that who's had more experiences in life?"

"Hockey makes you selfish, needs you to be selfish, you know that. He cares about himself more than anything just like the rest of us, but he was okay about it, seemed cool with it. Who knows, maybe in Sweden, no one cares."

His mom looked skeptical of that. "Did they care in Finland? Russia?"

He decided to keep to himself how easy it was to hook up in Russia. "Not a lot. People don't as much—care what the foreigner does. The ones who aren't staying, anyway."

"And it's not like you were getting married," she said with a sort of acid hopelessness that made him laugh. 

"That's where this is going, isn't it? You've been leaving me alone for three years, and now it's time to pay up on all those _when are you getting married_ deferrals I owe you."

"You are not amusing, Steven."

"Then why are you laughing, Mom?"

"I just want you to not close yourself off because you're worried about what people think. When you were young, you were fearless, and—"

"Sometimes, Deborah," his dad said from the doorway, "when you get older, you have more to lose. And it makes you—"

"Too cautious." She said, nodding. "Don't wall yourself up in a box and wait until you retire to be happy."

"Okay," he said, needing out from under their heavy weight of love. "I promise you I'm not doing that, not going to do that. It's a one year deal, so I'll just be focused on the game for a year, make friends with the guys, and then we'll see."

"That sounds pretty reasonable," his dad said.

"Yes, absolutely, until one year turns into another and another," his mother said tartly. "But I do hear what you're saying, Steven. You'd like us to quit harping on you."

"I think I need to go home and put an icepack on my forehead," he said.

"You do that, but eventually, let your tired brain thaw out and think about things."

"Yeah, yeah," he said, knowing she'd know he didn't mean it flippantly.

What he found to think about first was his car, so he called his dad after a couple of days of boredom. "It's three years old now, barely driven, but it's a bit—I don't know, a college car."

"You want something flashier."

"Modestly," Steve said. "But I don't want to come off like the guy who thinks he's something, or a dumb rookie who buys a car with his first paycheck."

"Which you did."

"Yeah, when I was 22!"

"I hear that Forsberg kid has an extra new car, maybe he'll lend it to you."

"Oh, funny Dad, very funny. I'm sure he gave it away to someplace worthy."

"You could be sneaky. You could buy something modestly flashy that's a year or so old. Find some place in Boston that leases cars to big shots. They get them back all the time because the big shot wants a red one now that his wife's left him for the pool boy."

"Dad! The pool boy, come on. The wife leaves for the yoga teacher these days, keep up. But that's not a bad idea. I was thinking of driving down to Nashville next week, see this condo I now have a lease on, speaking of not making a commitment to assets."

"To stay?"

It was a fair question. Camp was three weeks away, there wasn't a lot of point to going that early, but he would have time to find his way around—maybe have some fun, catch up with Kevin. "Yeah, I think so. Maybe I'll put the trip off a few days while I decide about the car. I like your idea though, I'm going to check out what's online."

"If you want to go look..."

"Yeah, I'll call you. We can both go."

They went, had a good time, and Steve bought a not quite new Mercedes that could go a lot faster than was wise on the interstate, but it looked like a grown man's car. It was a little flashy, subtly flashy.

He packed up his new grown man's car with the few new grown man's clothes he'd bought in Boston and drove south.


	3. Chapter 3

Steve's condo was exactly like the pictures. Nothing had been faked up to look bigger or better, and he was a little disappointed. If he'd been able to find something specific to not like about it, he'd have a reason for how much he hated it. It wasn't meant to be more than a glorified hotel room, and he'd been tempted to just get a long-term deal on a hotel suite, but that didn't look right, made you seem like you had no confidence in yourself. 

He wanted to be taken seriously and not be underestimated, so he had to show a serious face. He wasn't a kid, a rookie; he had three years pro experience behind him, and just because NHL coaches sometimes forgot there were hockey teams in other countries didn't mean that experience was nothing. He wanted it to show in everything he did. 

He filled his place up with a few essentials to make it livable and sorted out some domestic details. He didn't really have a manager—couldn't see paying for one when he didn't have much to manage. His mom had handled a lot of his US things—getting his taxes done, making sure his bills were paid for his house. He wanted his life to be smooth off the ice, smooth skating, so he set up a routine of cleaning and laundry and food services that would just keep his place ticking over even if he was bouncing between cities on the west coast, or flying into the Northeast to bus it from one rink to the next. 

He worked out in a private gym for a few days, just to get some time by himself to learn the city, get used to a new place, new people. Everyone was so friendly, open, ready to chat, nice and easy, like they all the time in the world just for him. He retreated to the team's workout facilities to get some quiet when it started to raise his prickly New England hackles. 

Camp was due to start in a week, and the prospects were off for their rookie tournament in Florida. The big names would show up in due time, make an entrance to the informal pre-camp skate—the team PR had a schedule of who they were going to feature when, and he was around enough to overhear them planning it. They planned to shoot a lot of film at practice once the stars were all present and accounted for.

Steve got friendly with two of the trainers, Jeff and DJ; it was easy to do, they liked guys like him who worked hard. They had no complaints about his fitness, but they had some suggestions about varying his lifting routine. Everybody always did, sure they knew the secret no one else had figured out. He nodded along and did whatever they suggested. None of it mattered much, he'd found, you just had to keep _doing it_ , however you were doing it.

"You had hot chicken yet?" Jeff asked him when he was done for the day. 

"Everybody asks me that. As soon as I open my mouth and talk—in the elevator the other day, complete strangers, they're telling me the best place to go."

"Well, y'all sound like a Yankee," Jeff said, not even trying to do anything to hide his not-southern accent. Steve hadn't figured out yet if he was Canadian or just the right sort of American so you couldn't tell the difference. 

"Never say y'all," said DJ, with a touch of long-suffering fondness. "So, did you try it?" he asked Steve, hoping for a story of not being able to take it. DJ had lived in Texas for years and had too much machismo about how hot he liked his food.

"I did—I went to the elevator people's place. I think it was a bit too classy a place to be authentic, but it was good. I'm going to take Kevin somewhere a little more down home when he gets back, if no one's beaten me to it."

Jeff frowned in confusion. "How do you know him anyway? I thought he was from Sweden." 

"Nah, he's not, somewhere else over there," DJ corrected him.

"We met at worlds," Steve interrupted before they could get going on another round of who was right and who was wrong until one of them ran out of oxygen. "I went out to Milwaukee for a couple of weeks to train with him and some of the guys."

"Right, we kicked him out for a few weeks, so we could take a break," DJ said. "He's been working hard. I can't wait for Goody to get a look at you though, he'll have a tough time finding anything to complain about."

Steve hoped that was true. He didn't need another argument from a strength and conditioning guy about how twenty more pounds was just like being taller.

Kevin came back from Florida a day before camp was to start. He'd been staying in a hotel while he'd been in town on and off, but he was going to room with Josi for a few weeks through camp. If they kept him on the team, Steve figured they'd make that permanent for the season.

He texted a play by play of settling in at Josi's place, which Steve ignored until Kev asked if he want to come out with them to dinner. Two of his Swedish pals were with him, so it was a big enough group they needed to call ahead. 

He met up with them at Roman's place, and was introduced to him and Pontus Åberg and Viktor Arvidsson. They sized each other up, and it was Kevin that started laughing first. Steve was a little worried the Swedes might think he was being brought in to bump them down the depth chart and back to MKE for good. How many small and fast forwards did one team need? It was a valid question, and was one thing camp was going to answer for all of them.

But camp hadn't even started yet, and there was plenty of time for these guys—all of them younger than him—to prove themselves. He had his own points to make about his game and what he could bring to the team.

They headed out to a decent restaurant, maybe a little too pricey for most of the younger guys, but Roman had picked it. Steve didn't know if they did the haze the rookie by sticking him with the cheque, or if Josi might think Steve was a viable target for that sort of trick. 

It wasn't the sort of place with hot chicken, but they had lots of beef and very friendly staff. 

"So you guys hit the beach in Milwaukee, Kevin says," Roman said, fixing Steve with a stare. 

He worried a little that Kev had said a little too much about Steve hitting the beach, but he just smiled at Roman and said, "I discovered a hidden talent for beach volleyball. If this hockey thing doesn't pan out, I might go pro."

"I thought you won something?" Kevin said.

"Yeah, okay, one fifty dollar gift card for a beach bar in MKE technically makes me pro already. Half of it was mine."

"Makes you the top ranked beach volleyball player on the team," Roman said with amusement. 

Their drinks came, Kevin looking at his Coke with annoyance, and Steve took a sip of his beer and frowned. "I'm not sure about this one, might be a little too hoppy for me," he said to the waitress with a big, friendly smile. "Can I get something else to try, just in case?"

"I can switch it for you, honey, sure," she said. They discussed his options, and he picked something that sounded good, and when she went to take his first choice away, he said, "No, leave it, I might grow to love it, who knows."

The guys were talking and laughing and soon enough his new friend brought him a reddish coloured ale that was a better choice for his meal. He waited until she'd left before he slid his pilsner-style first choice over to Kevin. He noticed Roman noticing his trick, but no one else had. "A toast," he said. "To Tyler Johnson," he began and grinned at Viktor, the shorter of the two Swedes. "The guy we're all going to get very sick of talking about to the press."

They clinked glasses and were just in time to receive their food. He tucked in to his beautiful chunk of American beef and let the other guys who knew each other better carry the conversation. 

"So, I talked to Jonesy," Roman said to Steve, leaning in to create some sort of illusion of privacy. 

"Okay," Steve said, smiling encouragingly.

"He said you guys got along okay over in Ostrava. He said you helped out Vesey too."

"Jimmy didn't need my help. He's a good kid, we just—you know, we're college boys, we have a lot in common. I think it's good he's taking the year to finish his degree—I don't know if that's the general opinion."

"The team might be in a hurry to see what he's got, but if he showed up to camp this year, he might find a lot of wingers ahead of him." Roman smiled, and Steve looked at him hard, looking for some kind of barb in the simple words. He wasn't expecting his parachuting in to be popular. He wasn't sure the fact he was pals with Kevin was much help. Kevin was going to leap over all of them, challenge Filip for star status in a couple of years.

"That's what camp is for," Steve said, "or so they tell me. I've only done it in Finland." And a few other places that a guy like Roman would have no respect for. He didn't even know if Roman had gone straight to the NHL in America or not, he might never have seen the AHL. 

"This is a good group," Roman said, like it meant something more than it seemed to. "We get along."

"Yeah, I can see that," Steve said, making it be about the group of them there that night because he had no idea what any larger meaning might be. "I liked all the guys in Milwaukee too. They're young, but they're not stupid young. I can't wait to get on the ice with everybody."

"Yeah," Roman, "it's been too long. This year we'll be playing in June, I swear."

Steve let them talk up their hopes of going deep in the playoffs and not getting kicked after six games. He had lots of hopes too. He'd had playoffs that stopped too soon the year before too, and he'd won a scoring title, and maybe they'd had no right to think Jokerit would go deep their first year in the KHL postseason, but he'd wanted to win something bigger to show that he was a real player. 

He cabbed back to his place after dinner and was tired enough to just crash. 

The next day was physicals and meetings, locker assignments and PR schedules and a whole host of things he'd never experienced with an NHL club. He texted James, telling him thanks again for his help in the summer talking him through it all. He knew he was sensitive about looking like a rookie, but he had years on these kids; he wanted that to be obvious, for his experience to mean he got taken seriously. 

The problem was, these kids, the European ones, they'd been playing pro since they were not even remotely old enough, some of them. They had years too. They wouldn't see him as more advanced, and the guys who'd done time down on the Admirals, they had an edge on him too. They knew the system, the unwritten rules, and he didn't.

He met so many people the first official day, he gave up hope of being able to remember them all by two hours in. He tried to concentrate on the guys, knowing the staff could be won over by politeness. 

He'd figured out fast that the social norm of Nashville was a big smile and some time given to a proper greeting. Finns were a bit like New Englanders, and he'd fit in there nice and easy. In Nashville, he was already learning, he needed to slow it down and brighten it up to not be seen as a dick. 

His official physical was satisfying. He known they'd be happy with his test scores, his weight, his flexibility, and unhappy that he hadn't suddenly become taller. He ignored the whistle of surprise when his height was measured. He had a quick talk with the nutritionist who looked him over, asked him a few probing questions, and then said, "You come back anytime you want to chat, you hear?" He was fairly sure that was a dismissal of the sort that said he had nothing to learn. 

The trainers, he already knew, but he argued fairly vigorously with Goody, the strength guy, over his preferred forms of exercise. "Right, I hear you," he said, trying to smile kind of slow and big like Mike the nutritionist had. The Tennessee style had something to say for it. "But I've got this knee that likes to remind me it's there once in a while."

"Okay, yeah, I saw that in your chart. Is it pain or just an awareness of something—you know, hinky?"

"Hinky."

"Okay, maybe I'll let you win this one. Don't let that get you thinking you've got my number, kid."

"Never," Steve promised.

He was exhausted by the time they were done, too much sitting around and waiting did that to him, but he got himself up for an interview session for the team website and double checked his schedule for the rest of the day. He had a radio interview at a station that was—he tried to figure it out from the address, and gave up, still not sure enough of his way around. He found a woman he thought was in the right department and asked her how long it would take to drive over.

"You should figure at least half an hour. Traffic will be terrible at that time. You have to park on the opposite side of the street, down about half a block, you'll see the sign for the garage."

"You're amazing," he said, and grinned, and then remembered he wasn't in a bar proving anything about himself and dialled that down a little.

By the time he'd done that day's talking, his Tyler Johnson count was up to four. Too bad it wasn't a drinking game because he was wrung dry. He went home, kept the booze in the cupboard and decided the smartest thing to do was sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day was the best day of the year—the first day they hit the ice for real. Steve took in the smell, the mix of chemicals and cold, and it hit him like the drug it had become. He skated a warmup lap, joined the stretching circle, and then they broke up into groups to discuss what they were working on that day. A lot of what they did was just brutal drills to make sure no one had lazed away their summer. 

They were deep into it when four goalies sauntered out on to the ice and took over a corner to do their stretching. They were yucking it up with each other, talking, laughing, and a buzz of electricity went through the guys. They were going to get to do something that was more like hockey and less like torture. They were going to get to try to score, which is what every guy out there wanted to do all the time. 

In his second year in Helsinki, one of the guys, frustrated with the pace of training camp where the drills seemed like they went on for days before they ever got to try a line rush, had taken away the soccer balls and arranged a ball hockey game in the parking lot so they could feed the need for goals. It was the thing Steve was a little worried about, playing for such a defensive team, he had the addiction bad, and he liked to spend his time around the opposing net. 

The guys were all wired with anticipation, and getting a shot at Rinne had to make it all the sweeter. He'd finished up his stretching routine first and slid over into the crease, planning to take the first shots of training camp himself.

"He's a talker," Kevin said, skating over to Steve. "In practice."

They leaned on the boards and waited for the coaches to tell them who was up next to try their luck. "He's not supernatural," Steve said with a confidence that was mostly real, "just some Finn in a goalie mask. You had those in Sweden, right?"

"One or two. None like him."

"You two!" Kevin McCarthy hollered at them. "Get over here, let's see what you got."

The coach stuck Col between them and they were off up the ice. Col slapped the puck over to Kev, which wasn't a surprise, Kev was more of a known quantity, so Steve drove in hard around the net and Kev zipped across to the right wing and sent a pass over to Steve who sent it straight into Rinne's glove. 

Rinne stood up and tossed the puck in the air and caught it. Then he waved his glove hand in front of his face, theatrically. "It's like bees buzzing," he said loudly, getting some laughs from guys nearby. "Swat them for me Jonesy."

"Not bad, guys," McCarthy said. "Stick together for a bit, we'll see how you go."

They stayed in rotation, skating in and Col fed one or the other of them, and they cycled around, letting Col stay high. He was a good passer, it worked well, and Kevin was almost as sure at the net as Steve was. 

Rinne kept up the comedy routine, calling out, "Buzz, buzz," when they got in close. 

"You're a funny, guy," Steve called to him. "No one told me that."

"I'm a great guy!" Rinne said proudly, smile plain in his words. It was hard not to find him charming, even if he was trying to keep them off their game. 

"Funny, funny, guy," Steve said, after Rinne filled up their next rush with a story about Col as the bear that had stolen the honey, and Steve and Kev as the bees chasing him around. "A joker. Oh, yeah, that's it, isn't it? You're a jokeri!"

"No!" Rinne said, in loud mock outrage. "How can you say such a thing. Roman, you need to stomp him for me, okay? This is the worst insult."

"No, you're not a jokeri?" Steve said as faux innocent as Rinne was faux outraged. "What are you then? One of those Kärpät? That's some kind of animal, right? A weasel or something? That's it, a weasel."

"Hey!" Rinne said, but he had to get set for the next guys. 

Kevin stayed high on their next rush and Steve drove hard around the net, making a big spectacle of himself. He passed to Col on the point, and Kevin drove in and picked up a pass and put it over Rinne's stick. McCarthy had given it to them as a set play, so it was good they'd pulled it off so well. 

"Bees: one, Weasels: nothing," Steve said, and Rinne stood up to his full height and pushed his mask up. He stared down at Steve and Kevin—Col had had the sense to skate well away. "I think I need some of those sticky traps for you two," he said.

"If you need the help, jokeri," Steve said, and shrugged. He skated away with a grin. 

"Wiesel? You called him a Wiesel?" Kevin asked when they where catching their breath. 

"Just another word for kärpät. You know, Rinne's team in Finland? They have the most hilarious logo, this little ferrety thing trying to look tough. But in American, if you call someone a weasel, it's an insult, like you're saying they're not trustworthy."

"You think he knows that?"

"Maybe. Someone will tell him, I figure. Calling him a jokeri will piss him off more."

"Is that a good idea?" Kev asked, looking worried.

"You really need to get over this, Kev. He's just a guy."

They worked hard for another hour, and then they were let loose to shower and change and go home. Steve checked his schedule, relieved there was no PR for him that afternoon. The next day would be even tougher, but he was happy with his first day of NHL icetime. 

"Buzz, buzz," Rinne said when he clomped into the locker room past Steve. 

"Weasel," Steve countered. 

"You think I don't know what that means, little bee, but I do," Rinne said.

Steve just grinned at him and stripped off his pads. He was wiped out. No amount of off-ice training really got you ready for the real thing. 

"The guys call you, Mo?" Rinne called over. 

"It seems to have stuck," Steve said. 

"So your little partner in crime there, he should be Fi?"

A couple of the guys shouted out endorsement of that idea. Steve looked over at Kev and shook his head, "Sorry, buddy, it's never coming off now."

"Fi and Mo. Mo and Fi," Rinne said. 

"Sounds like a comedy team," Jonesy said.

"Late show guys," Josi added. "When the not so good ones are on."

"You see how they look after me," Rinne said fondly. 

"Explain jokes to you, cut your meat?" Steve said.

"Slip you beers," Josi said, and everyone who'd been out with them laughed. 

"And now I need another joke explained," Rinne said sadly. "Always something. You should come over to my house," he said, hallway between an order and a request, like a polite decree, "you buzzy little bees, and those Swedish friends of yours. I have a sauna, you will appreciate it today, I think."

"You have a sauna?" Steve said, very interested. "What am I saying, of course you do. Count me in."

"I ask the team, can we not have one put in—this little equipment room beside the big one, I'll tell them, we don't need that." Rinne shook his head. "Never works. They say go outside if you're cold. They don't understand. You will come too, Fi, no excuses. And anyone else who wants to."

Steve collected Kevin and followed the directions he was given to find Rinne's house. It was in a very nice suburb, full of slowly winding streets and gated properties that weren't trying to be subtle about what they cost. 

"See, you say he's just a goalie, but he lives here in a palace or something, and that's not where we live," Kevin said.

"Oh, relax. He likes you. He gave you your nickname, which I'm really sorry about, I feel like that's my fault. But he obviously thinks you're awesome."

The interior of the house looked like a typical European flat that just kept on going, mile after mile of modern, sleek furniture. Rinne led them straight out back, into the September heat and humidity and onto a back deck that was unlike anything Steve had ever seen. 

The deck surrounded a good sized pool, and led around to a large pool house, beyond which a swath of lawn was barely visible through the greenery. The deck was scattered with furniture—benches, chaises, one double wide padded thing that looked more like a bed than garden furniture. All of it was surrounded and interspersed with plants. Vines, flowers, trees in pots, flowing greenery and flowers. There were lanterns hung from wrought iron trellises and candles burned in bowls of water on low tables. 

"I hope you don't have allergies," Rinne said. "The designer went a little over the top. But it's beautiful at night, and I love it." He shrugged, as if he were helpless to resist anything he loved.

"No, no allergies," Steve assured him, still taking it all in.

"Sauna is inside the pool house," Rinne said, pointing. "And the small pool is cold, as cold as I can get it, anyway. Better in winter."

Rinne was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, not any different from Steve and Kevin, but his skin showed pale against the blue of the shirt. Steve looked up. The vines helped roof over most of the deck area except over the pool itself, so you could sit out and stay cool in the shade. 

The Swedes arrived, Roman, Jonesy, a couple of the other guys. "Sauna should be hot now, I'm going in," Rinne said. "Use the pool if you want," he said to the guys hanging around. "Behave though, no foolishness. Come on, sauna is Finnish dress code, but if you want to swim, I have suits."

They followed Rinne, Steve, the Swedes, Kevin and Jonesy, and they stripped and ducked into the sauna quickly. It was big—could easily fit six more guys, and the smell of the hot pine wood made him so homesick he was staggered by it. He'd got so used to the routine of sauna after a game or a practice that it had become part of him in ways most Finnish things never had. He hadn't known he'd missed it so much. 

He climbed up to the top level while the rest of the guys stayed lower, so he stretched out and set his hands on his belly. It was perfect, like being wrapped up in a blanket of heat. "God, I've missed this," he said. 

"Can't live without it," Rinne said. 

"Last year, you should have heard the complaining from the guys when they realized none of the away games would have sauna in the hotel or the arena."

"What was that like," Rinne asked. "I read the news stories, and it always sounded so good, like there were never problems."

"It was," Steve said, and recognizing that they weren't alone, that he didn't know the other guys very well, beyond Kevin, so he was cautious, "mostly good. Travel was brutal at times. Absolutely brutal. But everyone else is getting it too, so at least it's fair. Not like the NHL where a bunch of teams barely need planes."

"Nashville's pretty cool for that," Jonesy said. "We're close to our own division, not far from the East, not too far from the West coast."

"Well it's all cool to me. If it's not six timezones different, I won't even notice I went anywhere."

He relocated down a level, enjoying the lessening of the heat, and he grinned at Kevin who'd resorted to a towel over his head. 

Jonesy left first, followed by the Swedes. Forsberg hadn't shown up, but from what everyone was saying, he did come over sometimes. Rinne shared his amazing outdoor grotto with his team a lot. 

"If I had no guests, I would say we should jump in the small pool and then come back inside, but I think I should be a host a little," Rinne said. "Stay if you want."

Steve took advantage of the facilities to rinse off in the shower and get dressed again. He and Kevin came out to find a few more guests had arrived, and Rinne had a very discreet caterer providing food and drink. 

Weber was there with Josi and a couple of other guys. They all had beers, but Steve wanted some water after the sauna. He contemplated having a swim. 

"Mo," Weber said, from behind him.

"Hey, Webs," Steve answered absently, mind on the enticing wavelets on the pool.

"I wanted to talk."

"Okay," Steve said, turning around and giving his captain his full attention. It was an odd place for it, but whatever. They found a place to sit away from the other guys and Steve waited for Weber to tell him whatever it was he wanted to talk about.

"This team, it's special," Weber said. And then he stopped like he expected Steve to have something to say to that. He didn't. Everybody thought their team was special. Steve thought it was interesting how good they managed to be without spending big money on many guys, the guy he was talking to an exception, but mostly he thought about cracking the roster permanently and Kev doing the same, other than that, they were just a hockey team.

"It's a good group of guys," Weber tried. And he _was trying_ , trying hard to say something with his simple clichés. "You've talked to Mike?"

"Fisher?" Steve said. "I think we said a couple words of nothing, not much else. I really only know Kev and the guys that were in MKE when I was there for a couple of weeks."

"And Rinne," Weber said, leaning back. "He's unique."

Steve laughed and said, "He's that all right." He wished he had a drink to have something to do with his hands. 

"One of the guys, he told me about your dinner the other night. You and Kevin and the other Euros."

Euros? Did this team split up on those lines? Maybe that was normal, but Steve didn't think so. He thought normal was European guys getting good enough at English to fit in and make everyone forget their origins. "Josi thought it would be a good idea to get to know everyone. Kev's staying with him right now."

"Yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. Good idea. Look, Steve, we don't know each other, and this is a little awkward, but there's guys on this team who—just, that trick you pulled with the beer, if you did that in front of them, they might not—I'm not sure they'd _say_ anything, and it's no big deal, I know Europe is different, but this is—some of those guys are serious about sobriety."

"Okay," Steve said. "That's good. For them, I mean. I would never have a problem with a guy wanting to be clean or whatever. It was one beer, man. Kid's legal in his own country. All his countries."

"It's just, I know maybe it's different where you're from."

"I'm from outside Boston, man, what's different about that?"

"Nashville. It's—I don't know, it's—"

"I love it here so far," Steve said. "People are friendly. They talk too much, and it's hard to tell when someone's pissed off, but I like it."

"That's good. But the team. We want the team to be together."

"Of course. We will be."

Weber nodded like something had been decided, got up and left him none the wiser. He gave up on the idea of a swim and went looking for a drink. A strong one. 

He found Rinne over by the table of food with a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew. He yanked out the cork, and looked up with a big smile for Steve. "Mo! You like wine I hope? Finland didn't convert you to vodka?"

"I don't mind it," he said, taking the glass he was given.

"Where's your other half? Where is Fi?" Rinne said louder.

Kev broke away from his Swedish pals and came over. Rinne handed him a glass and said, "Here, you will drink this, and you will like it."

"You sound like my dad," Kevin complained, but he did as he was told. 

Rinne imperiously ordered everyone to get something to drink. and then he raised his glass to the team. Steve watched Weber join in, so he obviously wasn't personally opposed to drinking. 

Guys started to drift away. It had been a tough day, and the next day would be as well. 

Steve was planning on driving Kev over to Josi's place so he hung around, nursing his drink until Arvidsson left with Jonesy. Rinne saw them out, and he came back and ordered him and Kevin to come sit with him. He did it all with an air that let you think he was joking most of the time, but no one seemed to turn his orders down.

"I want to talk to you," Rinne said. "Since you are new and Fi is almost new, we will talk about this team. You both have played in Europe, you know what it is like there. But this is not Europe." 

This sounded like Weber's talk all over again. Kevin looked attentive; he had his listening to the coach face on, so Steve went along. Rinne was a compelling guy, it was easy to listen to him even if he did talk a little slow, bit like a local.

"Some of the guys here, Mike—both Mikes—and Nealer, but only sometimes, and before we had Cluney, who's moved on, but they don't drink at all. And the Mikes, a couple of other guys, some of the staff as well, they are very religious. I don't know if you guys know what I mean, maybe you do, Mo, because you are an American?"

"I think I have an idea," he said, and a hell of a lot of lights were going off in his head. 

Rinne frowned. "In Finland we—did you ever go to a church in Finland?"

"Once. At Christmas—no twice, one of the guys got married."

"You ever hear one of the guys talk about church?"

"No," Steve said. "No one ever does there—one guy, he went whenever we were home, but it was just a thing he did." He looked at Rinne who was staring intently at him like this was a test or something. Kev looked confused, so Steve said, "My family went when I was a kid, but we stopped because it interfered with hockey practice." Rinne flashed him a smile at this revelation.

"My parents still go, sort of," Kevin said.

"Exactly, you are like the Finns. We sort of belong, but we don't care so much about it. These guys, it's different."

"And is that a problem?" Steve said. The last thing he wanted was a divided team where he needed to pick a side. 

"Mostly no. Cluney was very good, you know, he was sober, he needed to be, but he has a sense of humour about life, and he kept those other guys from making it too much one thing, mixed together—their chapel, they call it, and their not drinking. You will know, Mo, if you were paying attention in Finland, that not drinking is maybe something we don't do so well. Maybe we could use more of it."

"Webs was trying to tell me something earlier but I couldn't make sense of it."

"Me too," Kevin said. 

Rinne smiled a little, like he was familiar with Webs' communication skills. "Jonesy, he tells me that in basketball this is how it is. They have a chapel, they all go, some of them believe it, but others it is a thing they do to show they are part of the team. He gets along fine on this team, goes to chapel sometimes, but he comes here too."

"Here?" Steve said. He had to admit that Rinne's grotto of a backyard was about as far removed from an evangelical chapel as you could get. It didn't seem the place for sobriety either. 

"The Mikes don't come here," Rinne said, like he was a little sad about that. "They don't like things that are—I don't know the words for it. They like to deny themselves. This works for them, makes them feel—I don't know, if I should say, but I think it makes them feel safe." He sighed again, like it was a painful subject. "We are a team, though, we get along, we act like a team. You know what I mean, you aren't boys, either of you. We make ourselves a team together, but sometimes, for some of us, we come here and it's like this is European soil, we behave differently here."

"Like an embassy," Steve said and Rinne sat up and grinned, cocked his head like he did in the crease sometimes between rushes, like he was listening to music only he could hear. Steve always wished he could hear it too. 

"I like this. This is what we will call it. The Embassy. A bit of Europe in America."

"It might be Europe, Rinne, but it's not Finland," Steve said, looking around at the lushness of it all. "Except for the sauna."

"You may come here, my little bees, whenever you like. Tell me. I order you around, so you do the same. Tell me when you want to come and have sauna. We'll make it just us so we can do it properly. And then after, we'll have food and wine and enjoy life. Sometimes when you play this game, that's what you need. Not to be disciplined always."

It sounded wonderful. If Steve had millions in the plural, he could see building an oasis like this. an island of sensuality. That was one of the words Rinne didn't know. 

They left, and he drove Kevin to Josi's house, thinking about Rinne—Pekka, he'd been told to call him. He was a hard-working guy, obviously in top shape, and he kept it light in practice, but he worked non-stop. Steve had seen him with Carter Hutton going over things, looking for feedback, talking to Juuse all the time. 

Pekka was pushy too, like a guy who was sure of his place could be. Not too overbearing like Al had been at times, but forceful. A force to be reckoned with.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve put any thoughts of team dynamics behind him and worked on showing his stuff in camp. He was trying to work on learning too; there were some guys in camp that had tools in the box he wanted to get his hands on. 

They had games against the Panthers at home, so practice finished a little early the day before. He was exhausted from working to earn his place, and he wasn't the only one. Pekka looked done in, even after a long session of the kind of attention only a goalie like him got from the training staff. "There really is no reason they can't put in a sauna," Steve said, hearing the fatigue in his voice. 

Pekka grinned weakly at him and said, "You and Fi, you score lots of goals this year, and then you tell them that. But for now, you come over. I told you to say when you wanted to."

"I don't like to impose," Steve said, hearing his mother in his voice enough to make him smile.

Pekka shook his head, like Steve was maybe the biggest trial he'd ever had in life. "I will tell you to come then. Bring Fi. We'll do it correctly. We will teach Fi some Finnish curse words, have fun."

"What makes you think I know any Finnish curse words?" 

"You miss the net so much, you must run out of English ones fast. Was I wrong?" Pekka's tone was all mock innocence, and the rest of the room erupted in noise, approval for the chirp, anticipation of something better coming back. 

"You let so many in, I figure you've used them all up," Steve answered. It was a bit weak, but so was he after a long day.

"I will tell you a secret—it is in my contract I must let you score once a day. Too many rookies were going away crying, and the team was worried it would be a problem."

Steve had his hackles up at being called a rookie and at the implication he couldn't get it by Rinne on his own merit. "You forget that wasn't practice over there in Ostrava?" He couldn't hear any humour left in his voice.

His irritation got a lot of the guys going. The room filled with loud catcalls, and Steve realized he was being ridiculous and was about to crack a joke when Pekka stood up to show off his height. He had this sparkle in his eye that said he knew he was being an asshole, but he was doing it anyway. "I think I forgot to look down and didn't see you coming. It was a good lesson for me."

"Jokeri," Steve said, and he stood up and got close enough so he had to tilt way back to look up at Pekka. He'd learned this the hard way—you had to show that it didn't bug you, even if it did. 

And it _did._ It was all he could do not to show how much he hated it, the urge to step back was powerful, and his hackles were all the way up. If he were a dog he'd be growling. It took all he had not to move, and the guys were hooting and hollering and cracking jokes. "Weasel," he said, adding a cocky grin. He had to force himself not to hunch up, to look cool. 

He never hooked up with tall guys, never, and it was all messed up in his head, this feeling of being loomed over, being overpowered, needing to not show that it got to him. It was about sex, obviously, and Pekka wasn't an unattractive man; Steve had noticed him, noticed his face, the smooth planes and sharp angles. Pekka wasn't pretty, he was interesting, and Steve _liked_ interesting. 

Pekka was sparkling a little harder, like he knew, the fucker, that Steve was faking all his cool. "Little bee," Pekka said, sounding absurdly fond, like he was talking to kid or a dog, "such a sweet little bee, but never any honey. Fi is much nicer to me. He's the nice bee. You are the bad one."

"Watch out he doesn't sting you," Jonesy called out, triggering another round of loud laughter. 

"Keep looking down, or I will," Steve said, and he cracked another grin, trying to cover up how dark and angry that had sounded. 

"I am ready, boys," Pekka called out to the room. "Ready to play Tampa. You think maybe they will make the final again? If they do, their little fellows will be easy for me. This year we will be there, and I will have all the practice at swatting I need. You see how good you are for me, my little bees?"

"So you'll be perfect against Johnny fucking Hockey too?" Josi called out. "We can just leave him to you?"

The tide turned and the room started razzing Josi about his ability to keep up with Gaudreau, or any other guy they could think of under six feet, and Pekka backed off, tipping a wink when no one was looking. 

"I was serious," he said quietly once they were out of the showers. "Bring your friend and come over. An embassy night, okay?"

"Sure," Steve said, feeling himself relax, like a cat who'd had it's fur ruffled the wrong way, consenting to have it stroked back to normal. "I'll see where Fi is." 

The sauna settled him the rest of the way. It was different with just the three of them, quieter and easy, like they were all old friends or teammates of years, not days or weeks. He could focus on the heat, the wood smell, the taste of the air that was unlike anything you could find in the outside world. He could let it inside, let it take him over.

"You aren't asleep?" Pekka said softly, laying his hand on Steve's ankle.

"Finnish zen," he said. "That's what we used to call it—us foreigners—when we'd almost hit the same state you guys get to so easy."

"I don't think I can do that yet," Kevin said. "I think I will swim." He stood and stretched and slipped out the door. 

They'd been out for a quick cold dunking and then back in once, and Steve was contemplating another round versus a swim and something to eat. He closed his eyes, trusting Pekka to keep watch on him, make sure he didn't do the unthinkable by falling asleep for real. He lasted only a few minutes before he hit the point where the heat stopped feeling like an embrace and became an attack. "Swim," he said and slipped out the door. 

Pekka followed him shortly after, time enough to let him shower off the sweat and find a pair of trunks so he was in the pool when Pekka came along. They'd been in the sauna naked, but now in his swim trunks lit only by the diffuse light of the last of the sun shining through the vegetation that surrounded them, Pekka's body seemed _more_ on display. He was imposing, and he looked leaner in his clothes than he was in reality. Reality was a hell of a view.

Pekka caught him looking and looked back, frank enough that Steve dove back under the water and did a couple of easy laps to buy some time, to cool off. He didn't need anything heating him up, not too much swimming and not Pekka.

Pekka had a bottle of white wine open when Steve was rinsed off again and in his clothes. "Try it," he commanded Kevin, who obeyed like he always did. He made a bit of a face, but took a smaller sip and then wobbled his hand back and forth. "Steve," Pekka said, and he was just as bad, he went up obediently, took what he was given and gave it a cautious, surreptitious sniff. It smelled like apple and green grapes and sunshine. It tasted like tart and sour had got together and had a party. 

"Pekka!"

"What?" Pekka said, all pretend innocence. "It's good. Strong enough to compete with a Nashville summer."

"It's pickling me from the inside."

"You're a terrible guest! Drink it. Tell me lies about how good it is."

Steve looked up at Pekka's laughing face; he could look like an old man in the strong light of an arena, but in soft daylight, he looked like an imp. A giant imp, who towered over him and Kevin with a genial sort of pleasure in their discomfort. Making him laugh was worth the price of drinking the wine, so Steve took another mouthful, bravely bigger than the first cautious sip, and the tartness wasn't a shock, the flavour more obvious. It was bright and alive like a green grape right off the vine that just happened to have fermented into fizzy alcohol. 

"See, you should always listen to me, it's wonderful, isn't it?"

"What did you pay for this wonderful pickle juice?" Steve asked him, and Pekka ignored Kevin's snicker. 

"Oh, we don't need to talk about that," Pekka said. "Try it again, and imagine you're somewhere hot and dry with the wind blowing in off the sea."

Steve did as he was told, closing his eyes and calling up the week he'd spent in southern Italy one summer. The humidity in the air fought against his fantasy, Pekka's fantasy, but the wine felt like it fit in that imaginary world better than it did in the real one. 

He kept his glass and went and sat on the nearest bench, and the pair of them followed, Keven occasionally taking sips and staring woefully at the size of the glass Pekka had used. 

"Josi wants to know if I'm coming home to have dinner with them," Kevin said, tucking his phone away.

The kid looked like it was legit, not a dodge to get out of drinking the wine. "I can drive you," Steve offered.

"No," Kevin said, looking a little like a baby imp. "You stay. Drink. I have the early game tomorrow, not you two, so I can take a taxi. Hey, I get my car tomorrow! I can drive myself places."

"He won't need you anymore, Mo, you'll have to find a new one," Pekka said sadly. "Come on I will call a car service for you, young man, and you will not argue."

He did argue, surprisingly. Maybe he was getting over his too healthy dose of respect for Pekka. They carried on bickering into the house, so Steve closed his eyes and tried to go back to Italy for a couple more sips. The scents in the air were all wrong, too languid and floral. 

"You don't have to finish it," Pekka said. 

Steve cracked his eyes open. "No, no, I can do it. It's growing on me."

"I thought it suited you. Tart and powerful and full of life."

"Pekka!"

"I like how you say my name." He came and sat on the bench beside Steve and stretched out his legs, leaned back, closed his eyes, slung his arm along the back of the bench, like a man soaking up the atmosphere with no need to go anywhere or do anything in a hurry. "But you say it like it means stop. I wish you'd say it like it meant the opposite."

"Pekka," he said, hearing that the man was right, even in so soft a tone. 

"Do you want me to stop?" 

Steve didn't know what to say. They hadn't started anything, not really, but Pekka took his silence for permission to go. He lost his easy sprawl, moved his casually draped hand to Steve's arm, his shoulder, and then that big hand was on the back of his neck, and it fired every fucking nerve in his body. Every part of him was screaming, go, go, go but he couldn't move. 

Pekka tightened his hand, one quick squeeze, and then he let go, dropped his hand back to the back of the bench, sprawled out again, taking Steve's silence this time for a stop sign. Steve took a too big sip of wine that was acid burning and bright fruit and sunshine, and he didn't know if it was good or bad. 

Pekka, when Steve finally got the nerve to look at him, was relaxed and still, eyes shut, face turned up as if to the sun. Steve contemplated the wine and the man, and he knew which he wanted more. He also knew it was a bad idea. He didn't hook up with teammates; he didn't hook up with tall guys; he didn't hook up with guys who made him feel this churned up just by touching him. It had felt proprietary, that touch, like a promise of something he knew he wanted but wasn't sure he could handle.

He finished the wine. 

"I should go," he said. 

"You should come back," Pekka countered. "It is your place too, your country. I don't care if you weren't born there, this is your embassy too."

Pekka walked him out like he had Kevin. Steve looked up at him at the door, it was impossible not to, and it was like being back in the locker room, the hair on his neck stood up, and he felt sick and angry. He wanted to not feel that way, so he pushed out the door, abrupt and rude, and he drove out of the driveway, impatient at the slowly opening gate. He made it onto a straight road full of traffic and into the first parking lot he found before he _had_ to stop. 

He wanted to go back. He wanted to run. He had never come so close to flirting in the locker room, and that's what it had been. It may have started out as marking out his place, showing his confidence and his ambition to the rest of the team, to Kevin, but it hadn't stayed that. They'd crossed a line, and Steve needed to leap back over it.

He could feel Pekka's hand on the back of his neck; he could hear his laugh, the slow way he talked, as if he thought about everything he said before he said it. He could imagine that body—big, strong, long-limbed and hard as stone. It would overwhelm him. _Pekka_ would overwhelm him and smile while he did it. The thought of it was thrilling. Terrifying. 

He sought refuge in his condo, in the blandness of it, in the temporary feel of it, a reminder that he had no sure place in Nashville, not with the team, not in any other way.


	6. Chapter 6

Steve believed you could tell who was sure of a spot on the team by how much effort they gave, and it was true on every team that the guys who were complacent were usually sure of themselves in the short term. The guys who really worked were either looking for a long term gig or they knew that was how you kept one.

It was easy enough to throw himself into the work of training camp. He already had the reputation as a serious guy with the weights, he wanted to be seen as a serious guy on the ice, a worker. Too many guys saw a player like him, a buzzing bee around the net, and decided it was all instinct. It they admitted it was a skill, it wasn't a respected skill. He was a freak, like having perfect pitch and an operatic range when what the world wanted was a guy who poured his heart out with a country twang.

He kept up the bullshitting with Pekka during their workouts or the endless downtime that dogged the first part of camp. It was working for him. It made him seem fearless and sure of himself. But maybe he got a bit of an edge to his voice when he cracked jokes about Kärpät or ice-cold Finns being lazy in the southern heat. 

Pekka kept on smiling, treated him and Kevin like two of a kind—Fi and Mo, and he took to begging Jonesy to swat them. It became the running joke. His plaintive cry of " _Jonesy_!" cracked everyone up. Jonesy would sigh dramatically and pat Pekka on the helmet or the head, and fail to solve his problem. Pekka would turn to one of the other guys and try it. On the surface, everything was light and easy, and it carried Steve through his first game day and into the practice the next day.

He wasn't happy with how he'd played against Florida. Kev wasn't either, but Kev seemed like a kid who would never be satisfied. Steve was wowing them in practices, but it hadn't shown up when it mattered. Juuse Saros and Carter Hutton were both getting tired of him slipping the puck behind them, but Pekka still seemed to find it funny. 

He went with Kevin to Pekka's once, enjoyed the sauna and left when Kevin did. He skipped another session one afternoon just to prove he could. He was uptight and snappy with everyone the next day, so as a tactic to fix what was wrong with his head, it had failed miserably.

Pekka noticed his mood and toned down the chirping, which just made him more annoyed. He ended up hiding at the back of the pack of guys while the coach went over again just how deep in the defensive zone was deep enough for the forwards—three rows up in the stands behind Pekka's crease, as far as Steve understood him. He muttered that under his breath, and Cody Hodgson hipchecked him with a smirk on his face. 

"You're kind of an asshole sometimes," Hodgson said, like it was a compliment. 

"I'm having a bad day," he admitted, surprised the guy was even talking to him.

"I'd make a short joke, but I'm afraid you'd rip my head off."

"I will," Steve said, meaning it. Hodgson had thought cracking short jokes was a good way to get in with the new team. He didn't have the knack for keeping it funny enough that it didn't sound mean-spirited. He was worse than some of the Finns who'd tried to make jokes in English. "It's funny in Finnish!" had been the catch-phrase they'd all yell out whenever a guy would say anything that landed flat. Maybe Hodgson was funny in Finnish too.

Mike Fischer caught up with him the next day, a day that had started out better, but was going to go downhill fast if he was due another round of how to get along with the team talk. "You doing okay?" Mike asked.

Steve tried to brush him off with some platitudes, but he seemed immune to nuance, so Steve sat down in the lounge and talked to him. He steered the conversation to country music—the only thing he could imagine they had in common—and it turned out to be a painless half hour that ended with an iron-clad offer of concert tickets to whatever show he wanted to see. 

He didn't have time for concerts or any other touristy things in Nashville, but his parents did. They wanted to come to a game, and they'd argued about it in the usual way—he and his mom had discussed it, and his dad had kept out of it until his mother had what she wanted. He'd tried to talk them into the last preseason away game in Columbus, but his mother had actual data on flight times to counter him with and an itinerary for four days in Nashville. He eventually gave up and gave in, like usual. 

They were due to arrive on the day of their home game against Tampa so he made sure they'd have tickets waiting and warned them that he'd be busy right up to the game. They wanted to have dinner the next day, which he could fit in, so he promised to book somewhere nice.

"Invite your friend, dear," his mother told him, so he roped Kevin into agreeing to come.

Their trip to Tampa was a quick one, they played back in Nashville the next day, so he had time to knock gloves with Valtteri Filppula and pass a little gossip about what his brother was doing—playing in Switzerland and enjoying life after trying the KHL for a year. Steve had been lucky his first year with Jokerit, to play with Ilari and Valtteri both while the lockout lasted.

As a hectic introduction to NHL travel schedules, the tight home and home was effective, and he had no time to stress over anything, including Pekka or his parents' visit.

Their afternoon skate got more serious once they were back home and all of the guys had seen some game time. Steve was even less happy with his play. Viktor just seemed to be on fire, and Kev was good when he played with him. Hodgson hadn't played yet, and he seemed to be in without having to prove much. If it was a competition for one open spot, the one spot they'd give to the little guy, and it was starting to look like that to Steve, then Viktor was winning.

It wasn't a real game. Most of the guys treated it like a tuneup, and the few of them fighting for attention and guaranteed spots on the roster were aware that trying too hard looked almost as bad as not trying enough. Steve didn't know what he was shooting for—he'd thought he was in for sure like Hodgson, but it was starting to look less like a sure thing all the time.

Pekka played the whole game for the first time, and Steve was having his expectations about the pace of the game confirmed. There were guys on Russian teams that hit just as hard as NHLers, but never so many of them concentrated in one place. It was hard to find any room to move between all the crashing bodies.

He struggled to find a balance between the Predators system, which wouldn't reward him for hitting the jets to go up ice alone, and the need for speed to get his ass out of trouble. He could see the general place he needed to aim at, but he wasn't getting it right. 

He hurried out of his equipment and into the shower; he wasn't a guy the press wanted to talk to much. Pekka and the guys who'd scored, they were the ones the media wanted. Juuse hadn't been in the game but the press wanted a chance to talk to the next big thing before he went to Milwaukee. 

Steve pulled on some workout clothes and went looking for the video coach, hoping he could charm him into giving him some time to go over the tape. "Hey," Steve said when he'd found him. "I have a favour to ask."

"Sure, man," the guy said. 

"I'd love to go over tape of that game, there's some areas I want your opinion on. I know you're busy—"

"Nobody ever _wants_ to go over tape. They treat it like homework," he said. "I'd be happy to—day after tomorrow, catch up with me in the morning, early, and we'll find some time." He said the last as he was half-way up the hallway, so Steve left it at that.

He turned around to find Pekka, already changed into his suit waiting for him. "Come over to the Embassy," Pekka said.

"What, why?"

"We won the game, Steve. Did you notice?"

"No, not—I was watching other things."

Pekka laughed at him and moved in closer. "It's not a real game, but we have tomorrow off, so we can practice post game celebrating too. If you're free? Were you doing something with your family?"

"No, no, they wanted to go right back to the hotel after the game, they've got plans early in the morning. I'm seeing them tomorrow."

"Come over. Look out for Fi for me, there's going to be lots of guys there. Sauna."

"Yeah okay," Steve said, grinning at the big lure. "You should just lead with that, you know."

He got changed, stripped his jacket and tie back off before he got in his car—one of the guys had told him he'd thank himself if he started hanging the jacket up in the back while he drove, at least until it cooled off in winter. Pekka's driveway was wall to wall cars and the music from the back was just audible out front. 

Kev and Viktor showed up while he was waiting and Josi and Jonesy pulled in just as Pekka was letting them in. "There is a guest room," Pekka said, quietly. "The blue one just down the hall. I put some things you and Fi use in there. If you want to change, to swim."

"Sure," he said, and tugged on Kev's hand to show him what room they could use. Steve hung up his clothes in the empty closet and pulled on the swim trunks that he usually wore. He'd picked them out of the pile in the pool house as a joke. They were almost the shade of blue of the Jokerit jerseys, as was the room, come to that. 

Kevin was ready before him and took off to go have fun. Steve sat on the bed, and got lost inside his own head, thinking about the game again. He shook himself, called himself a fool. He could do that just as well in the sauna. 

There was a real party going on outside, and he skirted the edge, noticing guys he'd never seen there before, and he slipped out of the trunks and into the sauna, politely covered in a towel, American style. He was surprised to see Josi in there, sitting on the bottom bench with Jonesy. Steve climbed up to lie down on the top level for a few minutes.

"Hard core," Josi said.

"He's the real deal," Jonesy told him. "Loves it more than the Swedes do." 

He reminded himself Pekka wasn't there to keep him awake, so he moved down sooner than he wanted to. 

He stayed in until he was at the point he had to leave, giving himself permission to be anti-social one night. He was running the game in his mind, thinking over his choices. He wanted that video review to be productive. 

He took a swim after, weaving around the guys goofing around in the pool. Pekka had been serious about it being a practice for a real celebration. 

It was hot enough that he just left the swimsuit on and got a beer and sat in a quiet corner listening to guys speaking Swedish around him. The sound changed and he looked up and saw Kevin and Josi talking quietly. They stopped when they saw him looking. "Guys," he said.

"You seem tense," Kev said.

"Yeah, Mo, way too tense," Josi added.

"Thinking about that game, just some stuff I want to work out. No big deal."

"Take a night off," Josi said, exactly the way he'd say it to Kevin. And it rankled, bad. He'd been putting up with it from other guys, with annoyance from Hodgson, with patience from Fisher. Fisher had his heart in the right place, but he was just coming from too different a world for Steve to ever be close to him. "I'm not a rookie, Josi," Steve said. "Just because I'm new, just because I hang out with Fi, I'm not a kid. He's not a fucking kid, Josi, that's the fucking joke. I thought you'd get that."

"I'm just saying you look fucking tense, Mo. I'm not chirping you. I'm saying you look like you need to unwind. Chill the fuck out. You spend too much time in that fucking sauna."

"Ha, yeah. That's the most chill I ever am is in there. Sorry, man, I'll dial back my," he waved a hand, "whatever it is."

What he did was shoot the shit with Josi and Kev for a few minutes with a fake-ass smile on his face, and then he escaped to the guestroom to change. It was weirdly like being given his own room in Pekka's house, and that was freaking him out as much as anything. He looked at himself in the mirror critically. He spent a decent amount on his clothes, and he had filled out his wardrobe a little when he'd signed the contract. 

Maybe he should flash it up a little. He didn't look imposing. He couldn't carry the day with his body once he was dressed. He looked like a rookie, and he didn't like that. He tugged at his hair and tilted his head. He could do with a better barber. Or he could stop using a fucking barber. There had been a guy on Jokerit whose sister had a hair salon. Most of the guys just went there, but he could find someplace better than that in Nashville. 

The knock on the door came as no surprise. He'd felt Pekka's eyes on him all night. 

"Come," he called out, more sharply than he'd wanted.

"Steve," Pekka said. "Are you leaving?" He was leaning in the doorway, hadn't come in or shut the door. 

"I'm in a weird mood. Not good company."

Pekka shrugged. "Lots of guys here for good company. That's not why I want you to stay."

"Pekka," he said, and it didn't come out sounding like stop. 

Pekka obviously agreed. He came in and shut the door behind him, and he walked right up to Steve without any hesitation. Steve hadn't moved away from the mirror, and Pekka smiled, pleased with himself. He put his hands on Steve's shoulders, hot through the thin shirt and turned him bodily so they were facing the mirror dead on. Pekka was huge, encompassing, and he had Steve wrapped in an embrace that felt delicious; his body was singing with how good it felt, but it looked absurd. 

He closed his eyes, blocking it out, and Pekka bent his head; he had to imagine how far, how much the difference would be obvious while Pekka kissed him lightly on the neck. Steve hadn’t even noticed his hands, one big hand was splayed on Steve's abs, the other, drifted lower on his hip. There was something proprietorial about that hand on his body, and he just couldn't take it. 

"Look, just," he said, and pulled himself loose. He stalked over to the window, putting his back to the damn mirror. And Pekka.

"It bothers you. I didn't realize," Pekka said. 

"Not being gay, not that," Steve said quickly. Not that he was. "I should—we should talk."

"Okay," Pekka said. "Most of the guys have gone. Josi took Kevin home just now, so I think maybe there's only a couple who need to go home in a cab. I can just call and put them in it."

"Sure."

"You'll stay?"

"Sure," he said. He wanted to run and get in that cab. He knew he should just run off and never come back.

He stayed.


	7. Chapter 7

Steve stood in the blue bedroom long enough to feel like an idiot, so he went out into the main part of the house and found the kitchen. He'd barely been inside the house longer than the time it took to wander out to the pool. The place looked like a stage set for an upscale soap opera, just not the kind with big hair and country twangs. 

"Steve," Pekka said from behind him, and it sounded like a question, so he answered it with what was on his mind. 

"I date women," he said, fussing with a glass and the ice water dispenser on the refrigerator. "Because I like it," he clarified. "Or, I mean, I have sex with women because I like it."

"Okay," Pekka said. "You aren't telling me you've never—"

Steve laughed, tried to imagine having got through his teenage years in sports without ever getting his hand on another guy's dick. "No, I've absolutely had sex with guys. Um. Lots of them."

He turned around and found Pekka way back in the doorway, leaning again. It didn't make him look any shorter. Maybe he'd figured out Steve's issues on his own. Some of them.

"Me too," Pekka said quietly. "The lots of guys part, not the other."

He didn't look like he was sorry or ashamed or bragging. So Pekka, that he could just _say_ that flat out. "I bet you have," Steve said, before he could help himself.

"Oh?" Pekka said, and now the pride was showing. "You think you'd hit this?"

More the other way around. "Wanting isn't the problem," he said instead.

"What is, Steve? If you want to be quiet about it, that's okay. You might have to tell me sometimes to be careful, it's not how I am naturally, but I see the position you're in. I try to not forget that I'm lucky and not everyone is."

"I had a girlfriend," he said, cutting off that kind of talk. He didn't need reminders of their relative position in life. "In college. Guys were just for fucking around. Not ever much fucking, to be honest. Um. This is hard to talk about. Can we go sit down?"

Pekka led him into a corner with a big TV and a bigger sofa. There was all this space in his house—blank stretches of floor marked out with solid colour rugs and walls set at mathematically precise angles, lit to create the impression of intimacy when it was all one open space. It was like a loft that went on forever. American sense of space, European style. Pekka probably felt small in it, and maybe that was the point. 

Pekka sat on the sofa, and that left Steve to choose the chair and give himself some space or sit next to Pekka and set himself up for—for something. He took the sofa. It was a very long sofa, and Steve shoved that out of his mind. 

He tried to order his thoughts, get to the salient point, but he kept coming back to the issue of women. It really wasn't Pekka's business, and Steve didn't get the impression he cared. But _Steve_ did. He looked at Pekka, and he felt like he had found the man he could say this to. That didn't mean he wasn't afraid. 

"I had a girlfriend. College and then for the first year in Finland, we tried to keep it going. And about the third time I hooked up with some guy in some Finnish town I couldn't pronounce the name of, I realized what was obvious. We weren’t really going to last. So that's what I did. After. I hooked up with guys, and sometimes women, and a couple of girls wanted something, you know, to be a thing, or whatever, but never the guys."

He paused and waited to see if Pekka had anything to say, but he just looked like he was waiting, calmly, for whatever Steve wanted to say, so he kept going. "Kevin knows. Um, not that level of detail, but I told him."

"Do your parents know?" Pekka said quietly. 

"My mom is—we talked in the summer, and she thinks—she said she thought I only ever really fall for men. I think she might be right."

"Is that bad?" Pekka asked. His voice was so soft, so quiet, Steve wanted to shut up and let him talk, let the sound soothe him. 

"Not bad. Just. Hard. I—with women I like to—" he looked at Pekka warily, worried about something he should have considered sooner. He was being a selfish shit. "Does this bug you talking about this? Sex? Women?"

"Is that what we're going to talk about?"

Which, fair, it's not like he'd made much sense so far. "I think I need to."

"So, I will listen." Pekka reached out like he wanted to touch, but Steve had put himself out of reach. 

"Okay," he took a deep breath. "With women, if I, uh, you know, let them take over, it's a joke. Sort of. They take it that way usually. Sometimes I think they're really into it, but they think they shouldn't, so we're all just pretending together. It's easy. Um. Jesus. With guys, I don't do that. I don't."

"Don't what, Steve?"

"Um." He looked down at his hands. He knew all the crude ways to answer that question, but that seemed wrong for the conversation he'd mired them in. 

"Don't fuck?" Pekka said it like he already knew that wasn't right.

"Not often. I've done it, you know, topped guys, and it's okay—fun. Sometimes that's what you want—something fun, physical." He looked up, and Pekka looked like he agreed with that. 

"Will it help you if I say what I like to do?" Pekka said after they'd been quiet for a bit.

"I already know that," Steve said.

"Really?" Pekka said, and he was leaning in, one leg drawn up, taking up half the fucking sofa. He looked like he was one breath away from prowling over and showing Steve what he liked. 

"Maybe I'm projecting, but the way you touch me, it says things."

"I've barely had my hands on you. I'd like to change that, though." Pekka gave him a breath to let that sink in and then said, "Steve, are you trying to say you like to bottom? That's not going to be a problem, which you seem to know."

"It's not about liking. It's—fuck. I hate that you're so tall. I can imagine you right now, coming over here, and I want it and I hate it." He was getting worked up, voice tight. "Maybe it would be easier if I wasn't hearing every other guy boggling over my height all fucking day long, but—"

"We don't have to—"

Steve laughed, derisive and rude, and he was such an asshole sometimes. Pekka looked a little hurt. "No we—no. I can't do with you what I've done with guys I hook up with, no way. You could get me to roll over with a look." So much for avoiding the crude words.

"If that were true, I'd have done it by now."

"You almost have."

"Are you saying you want me to make you? Physically." Pekka said, so neutrally, so clear of any hint of how he felt about that, it left Steve feeling like he was floating, lost without anything to hang onto. 

"No, no, I tried that once, and no. It would be easier if I could say yes. I'm sorry, Pekka. This is, maybe I should go home. I just. I want so much, I want you, and it freaks me out what that means. I guess every other guy I've felt like this about wasn't gay, so." He shrugged.

Pekka frowned. He rubbed his face, the same sharp planes showing when he was done. "I don't know what to say. I don't know what the right thing is to do. I want so much too. Steve, I've never crossed that line in the locker room like I did with you." He sighed and plucked at the edge of his shorts with two long fingers. "I know what you are saying. About falling in love with a straight boy. It's fun sometimes, if you're honest with yourself. I've had boys I loved, who would—you're right about this—who would enjoy being pushed around. All in fun. Not sex for them. I don't think I really admitted that was about sex for me for a long time." He had a fond smile on his face, and Steve was intensely jealous of those boys, long gone and far away in Finland, he hoped. "Steve, should I push a little? Is that the best thing. Or are you going to just keep saying no? Should I pretend you're one of those straight boys? That this is just for play."

"Fuck no, that would be fucking torture. Jesus." Did he want to be pushed? Why the hell was he even baring his fucking soul if he didn't want that? There were easier ways to say no, and he didn't want to keep saying no. He was just afraid he wasn't going to be able to stop, so he said, "I think I want you to ignore me when I say no."

"Steve, I can't do that," Pekka said. "I _want_ you. But you have to want it too."

"I do! That's the fucking problem, okay? There is no doubt in my mind about what I'll do for you."

"For yourself?"

"I—yeah, I guess. Pekka, please."

"I think we have the opposite problem, Steve, I don't think I _can_ say no to you." Pekka stood up and then he was there, over him, on him, his hands, big hands on his shoulders, and Steve had bulk there—he was a hard man, and the feel of those hands on his body—he leaned back, baring his neck in the process, and Pekka had gone right for it before. He was on it again, mouthing at the tendon that was probably standing taut. 

Steve was so tight, if his ass clenched any tighter, he'd hurt himself. His pants were fucking causing him problems too. He thought he'd managed to kill any potential erections in the room with his messed up head, but no, Pekka was pressing down on him, pressing him into the cushions, and he was definitely into it.

"Pekka, Pekka," he said, grabbing him by the back of the shirt collar and tugging a little.

"That sounded like stop," Pekka said, breathing hard.

"Not stop, just—I'm going to come in my fucking pants in a second here. Sorry."

"Hmmm. I would say why worry about that, but I haven't even kissed you yet, that seems wrong."

"Jesus," he said, imagining just letting go, just not worrying about anything, what any of it meant.

Pekka tilted Steve's head up with his hand and kissed him down to his soul. It was perfect, and he never lost his death grip on Pekka's shirt, so it was likely ruined. He had to pound his other fist into the back of the sofa when it got too much, but he took it until it was overwhelmingly perfect, terrifyingly perfect. Pekka kissed him hard, but not like some parody of fucking, more like he wanted to own him, and it was—he really needed out of those pants. 

"So good," Pekka said, softly. "I want so much more. You're so good. Let go, Steve. For me."

"Jesus. No. I can't. Not—" 

"Shh," Pekka said, and he'd sure as hell figured out what to do, and it was fucking working. He laid his hand on the side of Steve's face, covered half his fucking head, and he was close enough to whisper nothing words or Finnish words, something meant to be soothing, but it wasn't fucking soothing, it was making him fall apart. 

Steve kissed Pekka quiet, and he got his other arm in the game, wrapped around him, _his_ fucking shoulders were amazing. Steve wanted to see him naked, have his bare body pressing him down, wanted to be out of his own clothes, and he shifted, uncomfortable and hot. 

Pekka pulled back and looked at him, studying him like he had answers written on his skin. Steve had no answers, just his fucked up head. "I think I can't wait," Pekka said lightly, like it was partly a joke, one they were in on together, and he moved his hand down and lifted up a little more, so he could press his palm flat to Steve's abs. He could imagine that hand holding him down just like that, while Pekka got him off with his mouth. He'd done that with guys, manoeuvred them into the position where he didn't have to ask for it. He bucked up and moaned a little, overcome with the images in his mind. 

"Yes, just like that," Pekka crooned at him, so Steve kept it up, writhing up and taking the pressure that pushed him back down, friction from his fucking pants doing the work. "Do you need me to touch you?"

"Yes, no—want you to."

Pekka slid his hand lower, shaping it to Steve's cock and just pressing down lightly. Steve hissed and groaned, and he was thrashing around like he'd never had a fucking orgasm before. It was almost humiliating, almost worse because he was still clothed, almost better to not be exposed. 

He ruined the fucking pants. 

Pekka stroked him softly as he came, letting off too soon, and he gave himself away, he bucked up again. "Put your hand back," he said, giving up all pretence. Pekka did, and he snuggled in close touching his nose to Steve's face. He could smell him, all the mixed up scents that made up a man, and he could smell his own come. 

"You are so beautiful," Pekka said. "You can stand this?" he moved his hand slightly, pressing down and letting it off.

"Yeah, um, yeah. Oh, god, yeah. I'll um—I'll get it up again quick. After the first time. After that..."

"The first time?" Pekka said with delight, like he'd been given the best toy. "After? There's going to be an after? How many times can you come?"

"Not always, it doesn't always—I'm not a fucking wind up toy here, Pekka."

"No? I think I can wind you up just fine. I want to try. Can I try? In bed perhaps?"

"Did you want to—thought you'd want to fuck? But maybe that's too much—"

"Shush," Pekka said, his normal imperious bossy tone. "Not this time. I want to think about it, savour the idea of having you, now that I understand a little better. I want it to be perfect for you."

"Oh," he couldn't think about that, had to push that away. That was way too much. He needed something though, something filling him up. "I'd love to suck you," he said. 

"That sounds good." Pekka stood up, and Steve felt cold and alone and stupid, sticky with come and sweat, and he hated how he must look. "Up," Pekka said, interrupting his flow. 

He got up. He couldn't look up at Pekka it was—he hated it, hated how it made him feel, and it was worse now because he knew Pekka was into him, knew what kind of man he was. He needed to be able to look at him. He had to fucking get over it.

Pekka didn't give him a chance to wallow, he spun him around and wrapped him up the way he had in the bedroom. There was no mirror, he couldn't see it, only feel it and it was easier to take. "Should I do this sometime?" Pekka said, soft in his ear, close enough the hiss on the s sounds was startling and did strange things to him. "Should I hold you like this and then make you come?" 

He slid his palm down Steve's abs, and okay, Pekka had a thing there, that was obvious, and the idea of where he was headed was enough to get Steve to buck his hips. He wanted to whine for it. He could take it, right there, cock still chafed from before, sticky with come. He could totally take it. He wouldn't go quietly though. "I think the answer is yes," Pekka said, and he kissed Steve's neck, and he couldn't help it, he tilted his head, giving him room for whatever he wanted. 

"Enough," Pekka said, briskly, patting Steve on the stomach. "Get moving." He shoved lightly and then steered him with a hand on his shoulder through a flowing assortment of room-like spaces and into a short hallway that led to Pekka's bedroom. 

He had a really big bed. 

"Do you want to get cleaned up?" Pekka said. "I think we killed those trousers, Steve. I'd apologize, but I don't like to lie to you." He looked up from his rueful examination of Steve's sorry state, and he frowned at something. "The bathroom is that way," he said, pointing at a door. 

Steve ducked in and stripped. His clothes were destroyed, basically, so he left them on the floor. He washed fast and looked at his face in the mirror. He didn't look any different. Tired—it was very late and they'd played a game. He was likely dehydrated a little, so he drank some water from the tap.

He'd told Pekka everything that mattered, had given him the map to his soul and drawn a big X on the spot where he could be hurt the worst, and so far he'd got a troubling and satisfying orgasm and the promise of more. 

He went back out to the bedroom, and he found Pekka on the bed, one arm over his head, legs slightly splayed. He was a big man, lean and strong and more muscled up than your average goalie. Steve walked over, close enough to look at him properly. There were scars on his body, surgery lines, other marks—a bruise on one arm from a puck in practice. He had hair like a lion's, tawny but sparse, gently curling around his cock, which was very nicely sized. Steve wanted that cock inside him. He wanted to lie back and take it, let Pekka fold him in half and pound into him. He'd always wanted that, had never found the cure for wanting that. 

"Hey, come here," Pekka said, reaching out one hand. Steve took it, was pulled in and enveloped, rolled over until he was looking up at Pekka. Something about the move made him laugh, and Pekka smiled. He got serious and kissed Steve once and then twice and then deeply like he had earlier. 

"I love how you writhe like that," Pekka said when he finally let him go. "How much you love what I do to you. I'm a little more quiet, I will admit."

"Don't be too quiet," Steve told him sternly. "I'll tell you how much, but I like it if you move a bit."

Pekka was big in Steve's mouth, and he hadn't been joking, he was very quiet. It was silent in the room except for the sounds Steve made, and he got into it easily like he always did, enjoying the feeling of fullness, the power of it too, that he could make Pekka feel good. He wanted that, wanted to pay him back for putting up with him and his issues. He pulled off and sucked in air for a second and said, "Thrust a little, just a bit, nice and easy."

He was very coachable, Pekka, and they got going in a perfect rhythm so Steve could try to get him deeper. That got some noise out of Pekka, so Steve pushed himself, deeper, swallowing and tilting his head to get the right angle. He got a long string of groans and a little more motion, not the thrashing around Steve did when he was out of control, but it was obvious Pekka was enjoying it. 

He felt proud and that was a little weird. He'd always sort of liked doing it, was a competitive guy and could easily turn it into just that if he wasn't really feeling it as sex. This was different, he wanted it to be good so Pekka felt good. It felt way more like going down on a woman than it had ever been with a man for him. 

He had to back off when Pekka was getting close. He kept him on the edge for a bit, liking the tease a little, but he would much rather be on the receiving end of that sort of thing, so he finished him with a hard and fast up and down and swallow, which got him the loudest noise so far. 

"Come here," Pekka said again, command more than plea. Steve wasn't sure if it was just his nature that he sometimes told instead of asked, or if it was just what happened to you when you were that good, that rich, that famous. 

Steve crawled up and was quickly enveloped. He warmed up—the room was too cold for his taste—and settled down, content to just drift and let the emotions wash out of him. It had been too much, this long day. He didn't know why he'd picked that moment to unburden himself when he could have just gone home. But it was hard to feel sorry.

"Do you want to sleep?" Pekka said, nosing at the side of his face, a move Steve was already growing familiar with, it was the test to see if he was tuned out completely or just had his eyes closed. 

"Hmm, I could."

"Or can I see this, how I wind you up? I want to make you feel good again."

" _Pekka_." Very much a yes, go. He was almost squirming before Pekka even touched him. It had been long enough that he didn't feel anything more than recently used. It wasn't the same as the intense _too soon—god, yes_ mix of sensations if he went for it right after. 

"Sometime—maybe soon, Steve, I think I should see how you take it after you come? You understand?" Pekka wasn't even really jacking him, just teasing, fluttering touches on the head of his cock, the occasional stroke; then those fingers would travel lower, touch his balls, the skin of his thighs. 

"I, yeah," Steve said, looking for coherence. He was getting way too worked up for just this. Pekka had an undeniable effect on him. "Do it now, fingers," he said, and pulled his legs up, exposing himself. He'd be begging to be fucked in a minute.

"Are you sure?"

"Hmm. Yeah. Totally sure. And I already know how much I like it. You'll enjoy it."

"I do. I enjoy seeing you like this. Come on, then, stop fooling around," he said, laughing, and he gave up the tease for a serious hard go with his hand. He used lube or it would have hurt, as it was, it was borderline too hard, but it was the speed that mattered, and Steve was flying on it. He loved to speed.

He grunted when he came, maybe it hadn't been long enough—it was intense for him, almost painful, if not much of a visual show. "God, that was a hell of a ride." Pekka had stopped completely, so he waved a hand, trying to explain, "Don't stop. Not if you're going to, you know."

"Isn't there a rule about not doing it if you can't say it?"

"I'm not doing anything, here."

Pekka rolled up and dug around for the lube again, and he went to work on Steve's not quite flaccid cock, driving him completely over the edge. Steve had done this to himself when he was young, but when he'd gotten older, he'd needed a push, someone else to do it _to_ him. Maybe he'd been wrong when he'd said he didn't want to be made to take it. In this, he did. It made him want to crawl out of his skin, it was so good, and so intense, and he had to just take it. It was—he was almost growling, it was so much. 

When he was hard again, and tensed up with his feet planted flat on the bed, Pekka looked at him and hummed a noise. "You're too tight for anything else."

"No I'm not."

" _Steve_." 

"No, just, one finger. Lube. You'll see." He would see. That was the hard part, that was the thing. He'd seen so much already. 

Steve closed his eyes and listened to the sound of Pekka fumbling with the lube, the snap of the cap, and then Pekka, being Pekka, began with a tease. He flirted with the most sensitive part of Steve's body, and it was exactly the right line to take. 

Steve took a breath, another, big gulps of air, and he was on the cusp of freaking out—had done that a couple times when he had been much younger. He was thrashing and writhing and he wanted to yell out no, no, no, not this, not this, don't see me like this, but his cock was aching, and his balls felt like they were made of lead, and he wanted that sweet, sweet feeling. He did, he wanted it, needed it. Hadn't done it in months, and this was Pekka. No one was more safe. No one had ever been like this.

"Now, god, now, please, or I'm going to fucking die here. Now." He thrust up looking for something to fuck against, and Pekka was good with his goddamned hands, he could fuck his ass with one and jack him with the other, no problem. 

Steve had a strong core, he could hoist his ass into the air and beg for it. He could. So he did, and it was fucking glorious. The drag on his cock was shading into too extreme, he needed to come again, and Pekka was banging his prostate on every thrust, he hadn't hesitated when Steve had loosened up, he'd just gone for it perfectly. It was possible Steve had told him to, he wasn't sure what was coming out of his mouth, if he was begging out loud or just with his body. 

It all blurred into one thing—the sensation from everywhere, the pull on his tired legs, the fuzz in his brain of want and need and getting it, taking it, giving in to it; it was all just fucking amazing, and he came with the weakest pulse of come anyone had ever seen, but the shit going on in his brain was almost enough to white him out.

He was used up enough that Pekka sliding his fingers out of him felt good, a good ending to a crazy day. He was so out of it, he let Pekka clean him up good enough to sleep for a while. 

He got up a few hours later, deep in the night, and cleaned up properly. He rifled his ruined pants for his belongings, setting an alarm on his phone. He hung up his shirt, thinking it might pass to get him from his car to his apartment. He avoided his face in the mirror, not wanting to know what he looked like that fucked out. Not that they'd even got that far. If he was this ruined from what amounted to some aggressive fooling around, how could he stand that?

He set an early alarm on his phone and crawled back into the bed without waking Pekka. It took him a long time to fall asleep again, and he was conscious of the weirdness of it. He didn't _sleep_ with guys, women occasionally, only occasionally. 

The weirdest thing about the KHL had been that the guys on the team that fucked around regularly—him and a couple of the younger single guys plus a few of the not so single guys—they'd done it a lot less in Russia. Finland had seemed comfortable, even to him, and it was routine for them to hook up on the road, stay over sometimes. In Russia, he'd found a lot of guys who wanted something fast and dirty in a back room, but he hadn't connected with women. He'd never really connected with the men either, the language barrier getting in the way as much as culture clash. 

He watched Pekka sleeping, wanting to touch the thin hair on his head, the sharp lines of his face, make him wake up so Steve could see his eyes coming into focus, watch the Pekkaness of him come into being. 

Pekka had enjoyed himself. He'd got off on it, and not just sexually, making Steve take it. Not just one it, either. There'd been a few things he'd taken like a man. He'd known that it would be like that, had been drawn to that potential in Pekka, had been utterly certain of it from the moment Pekka had laid his hand on his neck. Somehow he'd known to squeeze just hard enough. 

Gentleness made Steve bristle, made him feel like he was being patronized, but Pekka could get away with it, just a little, like he had when Steve was coming down off the high of sex. He didn't feel like Pekka looked down on him—how he loved that expression—and Pekka could tease him and it felt like it was supposed to, not like something he had to take without giving away too much annoyance like it was with Hodgson.

He rolled over as quietly as he could so he was facing away, and he slept finally, feeling only a little cold.

His alarm woke Pekka even though he got it turned off quickly. "You go?" Pekka said.

"I have to meet my parents," he said, a stretch of the truth.

"Oh, then you must. I will miss you."

"Okay," he said standing up and stretching, not sure what to say to that. 

"Check the pool house for clothes. They'll be something that will fit."

"Thanks, Pekka."

"Come here," he said, sounding more awake. He half flung off the duvet and held out a commanding hand. 

"Pekka, I don't have time."

"No, no, just for a little bit."

He gave in because he wanted to, but he didn't get back under the duvet. Pekka snuggled up close like it was mid-winter and he wanted the body heat. His skin was hot from sleep as Steve ran his hand down his long, broad back and breathed in the stink of him, man and sex and warm human animal. "I have to go," he said.

"Come back."

Steve extricated himself and stood up again. He could stay for a few hours, he had no real plans before dinner, but he thought some distance would be good.

'I have to go," Steve said again, truth and a lie wrapped up together.

He found clothes in the pool house, and he looked almost respectable in the elevator at his place if you didn't notice the dress shoes.


	8. Chapter 8

"It's very nice," Steve's mother said, looking around his apartment. He had a second bedroom, his parents could have stayed with him, but they had booked into a hotel near the arena, and having seen their schedule for the visit, he felt honoured they'd pencilled him in for one meal. His mother hadn't thought that was funny when he'd said it out loud, but his dad had been smirking over her shoulder ever since.

"It's boring," Steve said. "I can't even come up with a good reason to hate it, but it'll do for now." If he wanted something with life and personality he just had to go to Pekka's, and he shoved that thought away. He was having a hard enough time feeling okay in the real world without thoughts of Pekka or his magical embassy.

Kevin showed up five minutes early and introductions were made. Kev was the sort of kid that made a good impression on parents, and Steve's took to him immediately. He'd have no trouble making a good impression on women either, but he wasn't the most subtle guy. "You didn't invite Pekka?" he said when they were talking about leaving for the restaurant. 

"Pekka?" his mom said. "Should you have?"

And maybe he should have. They were friends as well as—whatever it was they were, and he couldn't let it be weird. It needed to not be weird with the team, and he wanted to see him. He'd been mooching around uselessly all day thinking he should have stayed with Pekka for the morning. 

He got out his phone and called before he fell into a spiral of overthinking. "Sorry it's short notice," he said.

"Do you want me to come?" Pekka asked, sounding curious and nothing more.

"Yeah, of course. Absolutely."

"Then I will say yes. Of course. Absolutely."

Steve told him the name of the restaurant, which he knew and seemed to approve, and he didn't complain about it being a suit and tie sort of place.

It was a very nice place, and the hostess was understanding about the late addition and happy to have them wait for their guest in the bar. Pekka showed up in record time—every hockey player was a quick change artist by the time they turned pro. He looked imposing and arresting in a blue suit and a shirt that looked like it might be silk. 

"I'm sorry I was so long," he said, shaking hands with Steve's parents and casting a gently critical eye over Kevin's clothes and giving him a smile and a thumbs up.

The hostess returned, took in their guest with a professionally cool smile, and then they were enveloped in a flurry of controlled chaos. They were apologized to profusely for another wait and after a few minutes they were led to a private dining room with fittings a cut above even very nice restaurant standards. 

Steve watched Pekka take the near fawning attention in stride as they took their seats—Steve ended up opposite his dad and Pekka and between his mother and Kevin. Their drink orders were taken quickly, and they were assured the chef would come out to discuss their meal choices in a few minutes. 

When they were finally alone, Steve looked up at Pekka and couldn't come up with a thing to say. Pekka stared back, and the sparkle in his eyes told Steve they were both going to start laughing in a minute, 

"That was all a bit extraordinary," his mom said dryly. 

"I can only guess there are celebrities here who demand that sort of attention," Pekka said, brushing off all responsibility for it. "Learn the lesson, Fi, don't be like that when you're famous."

"Good point," Steve said, before Kevin could think up a response. "You don't want to be that guy, and we want to be able to brag about how we knew you when."

"Oh, this is also a good point," Pekka said, interrupting Kevin before he'd done more than open his mouth. "We could do his introduction at the hall of fame, perhaps?"

"In the beginning," Steve said affecting an announcers voice, "when he still spoke to us—" 

They were interrupted by the server with their drinks. Pekka took a sip of his beer, and frowned theatrically. Steve wasn't even sure he'd drank any; he hadn't seen him swallow. He did the _I don't think I like this, but I'll keep it, can you bring me another_ act well enough. It's not like they were going to say no to him, anyway.

"You want some cheese with that ham?" Steve said when the server had left.

"You are mocking my acting? I realize I don't measure up to your superior skills," Pekka said blandly.

"Steven," his mother said.

"Mother," he answered in the same tone. Kevin hid behind his ducked head and tried not to laugh, but Pekka perked right up and paid attention like maybe a shot was going to come his way any second.

"Behave yourself," she said. Steve was tempted to ask her to put the same rules on Pekka, but that might be going too far or giving too much away. 

The new beer arrived, the old beer was slid over to Kevin's right hand and they engaged in a fascinating conversation with the chef about dinner. The celebrity treatment was fun. 

"Are your parents coming to see you play?" his mother asked Kevin.

"Oh, yes. For the regular season if I make the regular lineup, and maybe not until later if I don't."

"What does your family do, son," his dad said.

"Family business," Kevin said with a smile. "I will tell the whole story from the start, it's the only way to make sense. My dad is Czech. He played hockey there as a kid, but he went to a team in Switzerland for pro. He played, and then he stayed there, coached the junior team. He was coach still when I was old enough until I got too good, you understand? And, that was hard time. It was like I, um, outgrew him? I think that's what I mean. I went to bigger team, and then Sweden, and he still works for the same club. This is why we get along so well," Kevin pointed at Steve and Pekka, "Sweden, Finland not so different from each other."

Pekka looked so pleased with Kevin, telling this story of how far he'd gone for the game, how hard he'd worked. And Steve felt a little proud too, not that he could say why; he'd done nothing except try to keep an eye on the kid, make sure he was happy. "Kevin speaks all the languages," Steve said. "And your English is getting good, kid, you're working on it."

"I made rule with Roman, no German unless we are very tired. And same with Viktor or other guys—only English."

"Kevin lives with Roman Josi," Steve said to his mother. "He makes sure Kev's looked after."

"No," Kevin said, "Roman lets me sleep in his extra room. You guys look after me." He grinned and took a long drink of his beer. "They make sure I laugh every day. My mom says that, you must find something to laugh at every day, so this is good. Did you play when you were young, Mr. Moses?"

"You can call me Christopher, son. I played football in high school, small town, everybody did. I wasn't very interested in skating though. You learned though, didn't you, Deborah?" 

"When I was a girl. We're not sure where Steve gets it from, this passion for hockey. But he loved it from the moment he saw kids on an outdoor rink, wanted to do it too."

"Oh, yeah," his dad said. "Single minded devotion, hard work, a surplus of confidence. I can't think where that comes from."

"I hardly think it's the same thing," his mother said sharply. "Is it?"

"What do you do with this devotion and hard work?" Pekka asked her.

"I'm a teacher. Well, properly, I'm an administrator, but I'm thinking of going back to the classroom."

"You are?" Steve said, shocked. She'd been scaling the ladder at the school district, local, county and state for years. She was all about education policy. 

"I'm sick of it," she said with feeling. "All it is is endless fights over money. What will we spend the too little we have on? And the wrangling to make that expenditure teachers, equipment, _books_ —the things that directly affect education instead of buildings and offices and more managers and admins, not to mention the sports programs. It's endless. Sisyphean. I'm tired of it. I want to teach kids how beautiful math is and forget about all that nonsense. And," she said, pinning Steve with a look, "it used to be when the time rolled around to argue with the men about how much to spend on football and hockey, they would just so casually ask about my son the professional hockey player. Now they ask that first, before we even get to the argument."

"Sorry," Steve said, not meaning it, knowing she wasn't blaming him, but Pekka was frowning. 

"Oh, stop it," she said to his apology, not noticing Pekka at all, "You know I'm just blowing off steam. I was reading a paper about using new media in the classroom, and there was this case study of a school that used sports websites to teach math to kids. There were links, so I looked at some of them, and the use of statistics is really exciting. There's things about hockey there, Steven, and I'll tell you it was the first time this game of yours ever made any sense to me. It hit me, how much fun it would be to teach kids with tools like that."

"Ma," he said, glancing over at Pekka who was watching them avidly. "Ma, someone told me once not to wait to be happy."

"Yes, dear, and that's why I've been thinking about it."

"Taking your own advice?" 

"Considering it," she said with finality. "Tell us about your family, Pekka. Do they come over?"

"I'm an old man now, so it's not so exciting for them. If we make playoffs, maybe. My sister's husband is still playing for Kärpät, my team back home, so they see lots of hockey, and I think I will need to do something special to get them to fly over."

"I can't imagine ever feeling like it's old hat," his mother said, "but I know that's a long flight."

"Hmm," Pekka said. "Long enough."

"It's odd to think that Steven was doing the exact opposite to you for these last few years. Finland in the winter and America in the summer."

Pekka looked at him, some weird speculative look he couldn't decode. "I think I had the better deal with the weather," he said. "Kempele is beautiful in the summer."

"Helsinki's not so bad in the winter," Steve said. "Russia was an education in what real cold is."

Pekka made a noise and took a sip of his beer. "I can't get used to that, Jokerit in the KHL. It's, hmm, arrogant maybe? But I think to myself, what if it was Kärpät, how would I feel? I think I would not like it at all."

"I'm not sorry," Steve said with feeling.

"No, no, that's a point in its favour. Where would I be without my two little bees buzzing around?"

"Still thinking you were a good goalie?" Steve said.

Pekka almost laughed, but he got his affronted face on fast. "Steven," he said in blatant imitation of his mother. 

"Respect your elders," Kevin said, and then blushed enough to almost ruin the joke.

"When he starts acting his age," Steve said, "maybe I'll try it."

"I don't think I will ever do that," Pekka said. "I think I will be the crazy old man who always wants to be still a boy."

"Good plan," Deborah said. She'd been watching them toss the verbal lobs back and forth with her studying the data face on. Steve had no illusions about how easy they were to read, but he didn't want to put on a show for his mom and dad, at least not one meant to deceive, didn't want to for Kevin either. He could save his acting skills for the rest of the team. "Life is to be lived, and not just for the young," she said.

"Yeah, young man," Steve said to Kevin, avoiding the look in Pekka's eyes. Pekka was not trying to use _any_ of his acting skills. "You can have fun once in a while, you don't have to work non-stop. You'll get there. I have no doubt, kid."

"Now you sound like my mom," he complained. 

"Good," Steve said, tipping a wink to his own mother. She didn't say much else, just let them poke at each other and enjoy the very good meal.

Pekka insisted on getting the cheque, and the whole scene, the fluttering servers, his assurance that he should pay, it got Steve riled up, hotter than he should be over something so dumb, but he dug his heels in and tried to argue. 

He lost. He had no one on his side. Kevin got big eyed and quiet, and Steve's dad said nothing like he always did. That left Steve going one on one against Pekka's affable smile, the occasional knowing look and bone-deep stubbornness. It was a draw until his mom walked in and whistled down the play. "Steven, your friend is trying to say thank you for a nice evening. Your job is to say you're welcome."

Steve had to unclench his jaw first, and Pekka's eyes were giving away how much he wanted to laugh. "Thanks for coming," he said to Pekka. 

"You are welcome, always." Pekka said, all the amusement gone away, nothing but sincerity left, a dirty damn trick, just like how he liked slamming his skate to the post when you thought you'd got a wraparound. 

"You two are such a trial," his mom said with feeling, and she laughed when Kevin nodded vigorously.

Steve was too busy trying to beat Pekka by out-glaring him to find it funny, but that contest wasn't going his way either. He gave up and gave in and tried to wrap up the evening in a friendlier mood as they parted ways in the parking lot.

"I like Kevin," his mother said, when they were back at his place. Steve just waited her out, he knew what was coming. "I hope we get a chance to meet his parents."

"His other set of parents," his dad said which made his mother laugh the delighted little laugh she saved for her husband's rare smart remark.

"Funny," Steve answered sourly. 

"He's a lucky boy to have you looking out for him. Not everyone is such a good influence."

"I'm not sure if most people would think buying him beer is being a good influence."

"Well maybe some people on your team have their priorities a little jumbled," she said sharply.

"Mom," he said. He'd rather she razzed him about Pekka. "I know what you're saying. We—me and Pekka talked about it some. It's what you have to do, be a team with all the guys."

"You discussed it?" she said, sitting on the sofa, which meant he had to go sit opposite and submit to the grilling. 

They'd talked around it, was closer to the truth. But he knew she meant Mike Ribeiro, and the publicity around the trouble he'd paid to make go away. "I wanted to know what the real deal was. There's him and a couple of other guys who don't drink, you know what I mean, and they just—they want to put that behind them, things they did when they were drinking."

"How nice for them," she said primly. 

"Yeah, I know. I'm just a rookie, Mom." He flushed at having to use that as an out. "Me and Kev, we can't rock any boats."

"And Pekka?"

"Is the exact opposite of rookie. Ask him. He'll talk to you seriously about it if you want. But we all play the same game, Mom, on the same team. I'll tell you the truth too, this isn't the worst thing a guy on one of my teams has been accused of."

"That mess in college. I remember, Steve, trust me. I don't like this. At all. That this is part of the game—putting up with this is what you all do."

"Deborah," his dad said, "Steve didn't make the rules. He just has to play by them, even the unwritten ones."

"I hate that even more, Christopher."

Steve closed his eyes wishing he were at Pekka's where the air was sweet and warm and no one expected him to solve these kinds of problems. "I think Pekka does what he can do." Steve said. "I think he makes it so young guys like Kev have a role model who lives life differently."

"You aren't just defending him because you're in love with him?"

"Mom!" Steve said, shocked and angry that she'd caught him off guard.

"Deborah," his dad said, severely, "we don't know he's actually in love with the man. Massively infatuated, sure."

"Dad! Jesus. Is anyone on my side?"

"You could call Pekka," his mother said. 

"God," Steve complained and bounced his head off the back of his chair a few times. "I'm on a one year contract, Mom. I can't make an issue out of what might have happened in the past, and I shouldn't be anything to Pekka but a guy he knows. I have to fit in, that's how it works. And I know exactly what that means. I know I'm saying my hockey career is worth more to me than principles. I know that. It's how it is, and I can't fix it."

"Steve, sweetheart, I don't expect you to fix it. It would be nice if someone were making sure people like that weren't on your teams. But Pekka is a different story. You can't put that in the same breath as some, some, vile man who likes to abuse power. It's offensive. And he obviously feels the same way about you, honey. Don't throw that away."

"I'm not. I'm not throwing anything away. There's nothing to throw, okay. And we can—we can—" He had no idea what the hell they could be, so he just finished lamely, "We can be friends."

"Uh-huh," his dad said. "That always sounds reasonable in the daylight."

"How old is he?" his mom asked, saving him from imagining where his dad got that knowing tone. Next it would be how big's his family and does he want children. Christ on fucking skates. 

"Thirty-something," Steve said. "Old enough to know better."

"Oh, good. So he knows that life is short and you don't have infinite time," she said tartly.

"Mom," he said. "Stop hassling me, okay? I have another game to think about, and it's nothing for most guys, but I need to do good."

"Fair enough. We should go back to our hotel anyway." 

He got up, relieved the interrogation was over and saw them out. "It was a good night," his mom said at the door. "I'm glad it's happening for you, that you're here."

"I know, Mom. I do."

"Love you, sweetheart. We'll see in the morning before we go?"

"Yeah, we'll sort out a time."

They left him churned up and confused, which wasn't unusual with his mother. His dad wasn't helping as much as he used to. It was the sign he'd realized Steve was a man, that he'd leave him to fight his mother unaided. But that was cold comfort. 

He sat back down on his sofa and had his phone in his hand and his thumb doing things he hadn't authorized before he could get his brain to take command. "Steve," Pekka said, voice warm and amused, and he sighed. He was fucked. Christ on skates, was he fucked.

"Hi," he said. "I don't even know why I called."

"Parents gone?"

"Yeah. Finally. Fuck my mother could take over for Lucic, you know?"

Pekka laughed delighted, and he wanted to _see_ him, see his eyes sparkle in his stupid face. His stupid, beautiful face. "You always wanted to be a Bruin, didn't you?"

"Course."

"I'm glad you're not."

"Yeah, I'm getting that."

"You want to come over?"

Steve did. And what his dad had said was the plain truth. He should just stay away from Pekka, stay in the daylight and go back to using Kev as a chaperone. "I think that's a really bad idea," he said.

"I'm sorry you think that," Pekka said. Not angry or judging, more like he was sad, and that was tougher to take than anger. 

If he went over, he'd fall in even deeper. Pekka didn't just make him feel good, warm, appreciated, hot with anticipation, he also scared the crap out of him. Steve would roll right over for him again as soon as the sun went down. 

"Practice, Pekka," he said. Like that was a good enough explanation. 

"Yes, yes. You're right. It's important for you and Kevin."

"More for me, I think." He'd been feeling good about his chances until the last game. He knew down deep he was a stopgap for them while they waited out Jimmy Vesey's pursuit of a college degree. He could as easily be back in Finland the next year, swapping places with Pekka again. They could decide Viktor Arvidsson was good enough right now and he'd be surplus. "I should go, Pekka."

"You should do what you need to do, Steve. Tell me when that's me, okay? Anytime you need anything."

He picked up his parents in the morning and they swung by the restaurant he liked. He sat back in the booth and let them study the menu, and he reminded himself to expect things to run on Southern time. He was a bit gritty eyed, and suffering from too little sleep. 

He should have just gone to see Pekka again the night before. All he'd done instead was lie awake worrying about too many things. He tried to focus on what his dad was saying. If he wasn't careful, he would start remembering Pekka's hands on his body, and that wasn't where his mind needed to go. He had to find some way to be in public with Pekka that was normal, that didn't look obvious, better than they'd managed at dinner the night before. 

"I'm going to talk to the department manager next week," his mother said. 

"About teaching?" Steve asked, grateful to be dragged out of his own head.

"Yes. It will take at least a year but, yes. I want to find the right district too. I'm not going to spend my last decade teaching rich kids who already have a guaranteed college placement."

"Find a school where they don't just care about sports," Steve said, and she gave him the eye. "I'm not joking. Find a place where they think math is the key to success not football."

She sat back and looked him over, and it wasn't the worst experience he'd ever had of feeling like it was all written on his skin, everything he'd ever done or felt that made him ashamed or proud. It was close. "Are you telling me that it wears you out, banging on the door trying to get let in, Steven?"

"I would not presume to _tell_ you, Mom."

His dad snorted in amusement, and the waitress came to call him honey and sugar and ask if he wanted tea or coffee with his impressive breakfast order. Sweet tea, she clarified, once she heard him speak.

He was ravenous like always, and his mother shook her head. She'd never stopped marvelling at the fuel he needed to build up the mass he carried. "Eighty-two games," he said. "It hasn't even started yet, and I already know it's going to bleed me dry."

"You worried?" his dad asked, sounding like he was himself.

"Scared to death." 

His mother looked startled, which was weirdly pleasing. He'd fooled them a little. He needed to be able to make it look like he had total confidence in his game. It didn't bother him if he fooled people about that, even them. 

"And?" his dad said.

"I'm doing it anyway," Steve answered. Whatever it took, he was doing it.

He saw his mother roll her eyes, but he knew it was at least half feigned. "You'll have Pekka to look after you," she said, obviously trolling him.

"Yeah," he said. "I probably will." He counted it another win that she was startled by his calm reaction.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve could go home, he told himself when he was leaving practice early in the afternoon. He could drive straight to his place and find something to fill some time. To prove what? That he wasn't in deep?

He drove straight to Pekka's and waited at the gate to be buzzed in. Pekka was leaning in the doorway when he parked the car, but he backed away quickly and let Steve in the house. He appreciated the space.

"Sauna first?" Pekka said.

"Swim first, my legs are tightening up." They'd had a light practice, some video and a workout, but it wasn't enough for the level Steve liked to maintain.

"Okay," Pekka said and swept an arm out towards the back of the house. "My legs are happy to go back to relaxing."

Steve found a swim suit in the pool house and left his clothes hanging up. He did some hard laps and then he was very ready to rinse off and hit the sauna. "Come in with me? I'm afraid I'll fall asleep."

"You can nap later if you want," Pekka said, getting up and dropping his trunks just inside the pool house. He left them on the floor, as if he wasn't planning on using them again. 

Steve went up top in the sauna to lie down, but he came down when Pekka touched him on the ankle. He stayed until he felt perfectly calm and beautifully hot and was in the state where he knew everything about life was good. Pekka never said a word until they were outside. "Is it a day for the cold pool?"

"Sure," Steve said, figuring he could take it. It wasn't like it was ice swimming, and it hadn't seemed so bad the first time.

"Don't bother with trunks, no one can see us here."

He let Pekka go first, let him step in and submerge himself. He came up and shook and dunked again and he got out just as Steve got up the nerve to walk into it. It was fucking cold for Nashville in the summer. "Jesus, Pekka, what's this like in the winter."

"Oh, in winter it is almost cold enough."

"You want to go back in?" he nodded at the sauna.

He was tempted, but he was tempted by other things too. "You want to?"

"I think I'll close it for the day."

Pekka went to fiddle with the controls, and Steve turned and looked at the seating options. He was tempted by the lounger that looked like a bed.

He should have seen it coming, but he was too inside his own head, trying to keep the peace he'd gained. Pekka wrapped him up from behind and nuzzled at his neck like it was his to do with as he wanted. He tensed up, the surprise he told himself and wondered if Pekka would believe the excuse. 

He looked down at the big hand splayed on his abs, and he smiled, wry. He should have seen that coming too. There was pressure there, pulling him back into Pekka's body, and he closed his eyes and tried to relax into it. 

Pekka's body was stone, solid, unyielding, but it was the most comfortable thing to sink back into. He made a sound when Steve melted into him that was familiar—need satisfied. "I missed you," Pekka said. 

"We were at practice together all day."

"I know this," he said ruefully. "Come here," he commanded archly—they were both in on this joke now. He patted Steve on the stomach once and then steered him by the shoulders towards what really was an outdoor bed. Steve was naked and aroused and wanted everything he always wanted when he was turned on.

It was better the second time, easier to give in to Pekka bearing him down, covering him, kissing him so deeply. He had attention to give to Pekka's body, the way it felt to touch him, discover what he liked. Watching Steve come undone seemed to still be the biggest part of the answer.

It was better, but it was tough being outside. He was inhibited by every stray breeze or whiff of flowers reminding him where they were. He tried to be quiet, tried to keep his tendency to thrash like a madman under control, but it didn't work very well. 

Pekka was in a teasing mood, and he kept him on the edge for too long until he was whining for it, shoving his legs apart and showing him what he wanted. Pekka left his cock alone, abruptly, and went to investigate his ass. He was too fucking sensitive there, and there was no way they should be doing this outside. But he had no strength of character to stop it.

"You don't _need_ to come first?" Pekka said speculatively, flirting with pressing inside. 

Steve shook his head. "No," he said, shoving down, trying to make the point clear, he could take it without lube if he had to. 

"You just need to be turned on?"

"Yes, and I am, Pekka, fully turned on. All the way."

"Something you want?"

"Anything that isn't more tease."

Pekka took his hand away and slid it under Steve's shoulder and half lifted him off the bed so he could kiss him. His hand was on the back of Steve's head, and this wasn't exactly a tease, but it was damn close. 

He was let go of eventually, and he lay back panting, looking up at the patch of blue sky showing through the vines, feeling the fullness of arousal in his balls, the need, the emptiness he wanted filled, the ghost of sense memory.

"I think it would be a mistake to try to do this outside," Pekka said regretfully. "But I'm not sure it would be kind to make you walk like this to the bedroom." He stroked Steve's cock gently, and Steve had eyes, he knew that Pekka was almost as aroused as he was. 

"We don't need to go all the way to the bedroom," he said, bucking up into Pekka's hand. 

"Oh, no, not as a rule, no. This time, I think we do." He shoved Steve's face with his nose to get his full attention. "I want to see your face." Pekka didn't give him time to think about that, he just went for the fast twisting jacking motion he favoured and watched while Steve went off like a guy who hadn't had sex in years. Pekka kept at him, using his own come as lube, he worked him gently, stopping to flutter his fingers against his very sensitive balls and then rubbing over his hole. 

Steve expected him to stop, to give the imperious command of, "Up," and steer him inside the house. He didn't. He kept up the tease, penetrating with the tip of his finger and then leaving to jack him some more, play with his balls. Steve was wild for it, and when Pekka just rubbed his thumb over the head of his cock he almost screamed. "We need to go in," he ground out.

"We will," Pekka promised him. He didn't look ready to deliver on that promise. He stopped what he was doing completely to kiss again, and a man could grow to despise that act given enough provocation. Steve wasn't left hanging for long, though, and the thumb was back at it, then the tease of his ass started up again. 

Pekka was humping his leg a little, keeping himself primed for it. He had to be at the end of his own patience, and Steve tried to come, tried to _make_ the not enough Pekka was doing _be_ enough by force of will. It didn't work. "Please," he said, suddenly realizing that begging might be the reaction Pekka wanted. He preferred to do that with his body, so he thrust his hips, pointing out what needed friction. 

Pekka's hand was sticky, drying out too much, but he needed it enough that he didn't care, and when Pekka finally, Jesus, finally finished him off it was edge of painful and perfect, not the rocket going off, more like the slow warmth of a shot of whiskey flowing through him from the inside out. 

He was fully in afterglow mode when the, "Up, up," command sounded. Pekka sounded strained, like he'd teased himself too much with all of that, and Steve was perversely pleased. Let him be dying for it for a change. Steve stood up, wobbled barely and set off for inside.

"You don't get to clean up," Pekka said once they were in the bedroom. "Down, now."

He sounded more desperate than bossy, and Steve was grinning at him, cocky, enjoying his distress when he hit the bed. The very good look at Pekka's hard cock and just how big it was almost wiped the smile off his face. Steve was loose and relaxed and very, very happy, so it would be okay, he told himself. 

Pekka tossed him the lube and jerked his chin in instruction or plea to hurry. 

Steve had never gotten any thrill from playing with his own ass. That was probably for the best, or he'd have spent his entire teenage years in bed. He got the job done, while Pekka got the condom on. It was going to hurt. It was better when it did, at least a little. 

He very much underestimated Pekka's patience and self-control. He didn't go for it, not even when Steve pulled his legs back and displayed himself like a dog rolling over to show its belly. Pekka grabbed the lube and tutted his displeasure at the job Steve had done and did it himself, thoroughly completely, absolutely to the max until Steve was as desperate as he'd ever been. 

Pekka, he realized, had a serious thing for making himself wait. 

"Come on, Pekka, now. Please. Come on, just, I'm dying. Literally dying. I _need_ you. Need, Pekka."

"Okay, stop nagging," Pekka said, and he was fast getting into position, and fully committed to the sweet slide home. God, it was just. He was. It was. He took it hard. Hard and fast and a lot longer than should have been possible.

You could say it, crude, like you were selling porn on the internet—folded in half and pounded hard—but to do it, to take it, when it was the thing you loved and the thing you hated almost exactly equally? When the guy doing it was someone you maybe loved. When you were so strung out on pleasure you didn't know your own name. It wasn't like anything he'd ever done before. It wasn't what he'd thought he'd needed in his darker fantasies. 

He didn't hate it, that was for damn sure. He did, sort of, come again, a tight clench of his ass that made Pekka cry out in a way that sounded almost out of control. He _liked_ that. He hadn't heard that out of Pekka before, and he wanted to hear that again. 

Everything became a delicious blur after that of animal sounds and animal behaviour, and he gave up believing he wasn't made for it, at least for a little while. He gave himself permission to pass out when Pekka was done with him too. 

He woke up alone in the dark. He had burrowed under the duvet and was still cold. He also felt like he'd been used in that very clichéd way. He crawled out of bed and felt around for a light. He discovered it was well into evening, and his stomach took note and complained. 

He had a shower, wincing at the mess sex had left behind on his body. He checked for bruises, not remembering anything they'd done that would have caused them, but wanting to be sure. He found his clothes on a hook behind the door, so he wasn't trapped naked in the house, a run to the pool house between him and anything to cover himself with. 

He looked like he always did in the mirror, nothing outwardly different. He could remember, vividly, feeling like it was all okay to do what he'd done. He could remember feeling free and liberated and like it was _right_ to do what he'd done. But he didn't know how he'd got there or if he'd ever find the way back. The magic of sex—it convinced you right was wrong and up was down until you came down off the high. 

He found Pekka inside the house, sitting in a low leather chair, long legs stretched out while he read something he found engrossing. Steve said his name quietly, and he looked up, frown dissolving into a smile, something simply beautiful about it. Steve couldn't look away, and he was light-headed from it. It was almost the high of sex, if not quite so dangerous, but it was enough to make him believe whatever he had with Pekka was more serious than fucking around.

"Are you hungry?" Pekka said. 

"Starving."

"I don't cook," he said with regret. "But I have a lot of places that will deliver. I tried having a chef, but it was too much for one person. It was—I always felt obligated to eat things I didn't want."

"Okay," Steve said, not able to imagine a personal chef as a burden. 

"Forget that, I'm just talking. Tell me what you want, I'll use magic and make it appear."

"That sounds much more exciting," Steve said. What was all that money anyway if it wasn't enough like magic to fool a rube like him? "Steak would be nice."

"Hmm, okay. I will have something different, but this is possible." He got up and took a wide path around Steve to go find his phone and make a call. 

Steve had to do something about that. They had to be together all the time, and so far he'd felt okay about it in the rink, totally fine when he was armoured up on the ice, but he couldn't make the man avoid him in his own house. 

"You should bring some clothes over," Pekka said from behind, not too close, but not the other side of the room either. Steve turned around and looked at him, and it was still there, the feeling of lightness, nearly dizziness that hunger couldn't account for. "You could use that guest room. Make it yours."

"Thanks for getting my stuff," Steve said, avoiding the idea of making a place for himself in the house he wasn't even sure he'd seen all of yet.

Pekka shrugged it off, and Steve considered cracking a joke about how his job was to say you're welcome. Instead he said, "Stand there. I mean stay, don't move."

"Okay," Pekka said and watched him approach with something like wariness.

Steve got close enough to hear him breathe, close enough to smell the scent he already knew well. Close enough to taste.

Pekka opened his mouth, and Steve interrupted him and said, "No telling me I don't have to, either." He laid his hands on Pekka, realizing he should have started lower, on _his_ killer abs. He slid his palms up and told himself it was like being lifted up, that it wasn't something he could control, that someone or something had him by the wrists and was pulling him up and up until he was up on his toes and kissing Pekka.

He hadn't considered that Pekka would go for a dirty grip on his ass as he bent his head to make it easier to kiss. He hadn't considered Pekka would knead his ass and make him half hard when he hadn't really been thinking of this as sexy at all. He could rut against him and come, no problem. He could turn around and beg with his body to be made to come. He groaned and pulled away and backed up two steps, and then three. 

"Jesus. If we didn't have food coming, if I wasn't starving."

"There's always after, or the morning, you could stay, and we could wake up slow. But come here, sit with me, and I'll try to keep from—" he shrugged.

"Driving me mad, Pekka, that's what you do." Pekka was pleased by that and waved him at another chair so they could sit together, just not too close. 

"Oh, we can't be lazy in the morning. Damn," Pekka said. "I could cancel."

"What?" Steve said. "You have plans."

"I'm supposed to go play golf with some friends." He looked at Steve speculatively. "I can back out, or you could come with me."

"Um, I have clubs at home. And clothes, obviously. But—"

"They aren't hockey friends."

"Oh?"

Pekka looked at him and smiled like he just liked looking. Which would be a problem out in public. Sort of. Depending on the kind of friends. "I know some Nashville people," Pekka said. "One of them is the owner of that restaurant where we had dinner with your parents."

"Oh, that explains much."

Pekka didn't look apologetic. He did look like he was sorry they were sitting so far apart. "You could come with us. Terry was bringing a friend."

"I don't know," Steve said, more intimidated by how big a sum Terry would call loose change and how that was likely bigger than Steve's entire net worth than by exposing his relationship with Pekka to public view. 

The arrival of the food forced them into a dining area, and Steve looked at the designer chunk of silver he was given to eat his meal with and told himself again he needed to just accept Pekka's lifestyle. "Sure I'll go," he said. "We can swing by my place and I can change fast, grab my clubs."

They ate their meal together, then spent some time quietly in another area of Pekka's endless house that had a softer, smaller sofa, made for two people who were friendly enough to be close. He kept thinking he should leave, that if Pekka didn't want sex, why was he there? He kept staying; they found things to talk about, and the strangeness of doing it with a man faded. 

Sleeping with Pekka was even weirder. He was a bit too cold like always, and he had a hard time keeping his worries at bay in the darkness. His dad had been right about temptations being easier to resist in the daylight, but so was despair. 

He was afraid he hadn't done enough to make the team. He'd hadn't played as well as he could; the goals he knew he could score hadn't come, and he had two more chances to prove it, two more preseason games. Some of his friends in Finland, guys who'd tried to make the move up to the NHL, had said it took time to learn the game on the smaller ice, to learn how to find the space to move through in heavier traffic. 

He'd played almost his whole career on big ice, in college and in Finland, and they were right, he wasn't finding the space he needed. He was okay on the power play, but in a game situation, he was getting stuck in traffic. He was starting to get looks in practice when he sent the puck behind Rinne or Saros more than anyone else managed. Looks that said _why aren't you doing that when it counts_? 

He slept eventually, woke up cold and alone, and had to hurry to get showered and grab something to eat from a tray of pastries that had appeared by Pekka's magic. They still had to run over to his place for his clubs. 

He told Pekka to come up with him, so he wouldn't have the freedom to have second thoughts about going. He had the right sort of pants, he had shoes, and golf shoes in his bag, and he had a dark-blue, Jokerit-logoed golf shirt. 

Pekka raised a brow at the shirt, and Steve grinned at him, slapped him on the shoulder and hoisted his golf bag. "Come on, Pekka, let's see what you've got when you're shooting instead of catching."

Terry turned out to be a nice-looking thirty-five with an expensive gym body, a perfect toothy smile, and casually expensive clothes. He was friendly, charming and seemed to think it was okay to put his hands on Pekka way more than Pekka was comfortable with. It raised Steve's hackles, and he was self aware enough to find that a little funny.

Terry's friend was a guy from Texas named Kyle who liked talking about horses, shanking the ball to the left and staring at Steve's ass. Terry seemed to be genially hustling an investment out of the guy, so Steve decided to be nice about it and bend over facing the right way as often as possible. 

"What is that symbol?" Kyle said when he'd raised his eyes enough to notice Steve's shoulders.

He was tempted to tell him it was for _the agency_ and leave him guessing because around about the sixth hole he'd figured out Kyle was half convinced he was an escort. Pekka hadn't seemed to pick up on that, so he behaved himself and said, "My old team. I could have worn one for the new team, but it's a shade of yellow I'd only put on if you paid me. Or I was trying hard to win this game."

He stepped up to the green, letting Kyle reorder his assumptions in his own time, and sank a nice long putt to take the lead in the damn game. 

"Come on," Terry said. "How the hell do you do that."

"Sick hands," Pekka said. "That's the term for it these days."

"Yeah, play the old man, sure," Steve scoffed.

Pekka had exquisite style on the course. He looked like a picture from a golf brochure mid-swing, and he had a good eye for the long drive. But, he looked like a giraffe trying to tap dance on the putting green. He was charmingly bad and cheerfully losing.

By the eighteenth hole, Kyle was having buyer's remorse on the deal he hadn't even signed yet, so Steve squatted down to eye up a putt he could make one handed, and he heard a hiss of breath behind him. "We should do this again," he said to Pekka before he stepped up and sank the ball two handed, won the game, and was probably due a commission from Terry.

Terry took Kyle off to the bar for mimosas and brunch, and if he were smart, he'd get the guy locked down while he was still horny for something to own. He wasn't getting Steve's ass, so maybe half a restaurant would make up for it. 

Pekka's cheerfulness seemed to have disappeared by the time they'd made it to the arena in time for their practice, but Steve figured it was just the game face showing up early.


	10. Chapter 10

Steve had to rush a little to make it in in time for video review before they hit the ice, and it took him longer than usual to get in the flow with Larry. He'd been expecting some more one-on-one time, but Larry had seen something on the tape and made Kev come in too. Steve grimaced in apology to him, but Kev was all business. 

Steve came out and told Larry what he'd been thinking about timing and space, and the guy stopped and re-evaluated his audience because Kevin was nodding and saying, "Yes this is exactly the problem."

Larry wasn't much older than Steve, and as soon as he realized he was dealing with serious players who played with their heads, they had a productive session. It made Steve feel better about his choice to sign with Nashville. Most of the staff were young guys like Larry. The team were either convinced they needed new ideas, or they just couldn't afford guys more experienced, but so far Steve thought all of them were good. Larry didn't hesitate to give them his full attention.

He and Kevin had time for a quick snack before the real work of the day began. "You do anything good today?" Kevin asked. 

"Hey, guys," Weber said and slid into the seat beside Steve. They were the only ones in the dining room, most of the guys having already moved off to get changed.

"Webs," Steve said with a nod. "Yeah, Kev, I went golfing with Pekka."

"You're kidding," Weber said. "Peks—you went golfing with Peks?"

"Yeah?" Steve said, trying to figure out where he'd stepped wrong. Pekka wasn't that much of a loner. Their road trip, he'd kept to himself, but lots of guys did that on the road. 

"He take you to The Grove?"

"I think that was the name. We played with a friend of his."

"You any good?"

Steve was annoyed by the almost mocking tone, and he'd wanted alone time with Kev, so he said, "Of course I'm good, I'm not a booming drive and nothing else."

Kev laughed a little and tried to look like he wasn't there when Weber glanced at him. "Relax, man. Fuck, you're touchy. That's my club, I wondered if you were joining."

"Seems a bit too classy for me, and how the hell would I get in?"

Weber rolled his eyes. "Pekka, you stupid fuck. Or I would. He never plays with the guys, so I was just surprised he took you."

"I was handy," Steve said. "It was a good course. Tough."

"You beat him?" Kev asked.

"Of course, I'm not a fucking too-tall goalie either."

Kev snickered and then sobered up again when he drew Weber's attention, and said, "I found a place when I was here, you know after Milwaukee." He grinned, and Steve toasted him with his coffee for getting it out nice and smooth. "It was good. We could go, maybe."

"Oh, yeah, yeah, this town you can play all year, practically, right?"

Weber frowned and then said, "Not in the middle of winter, but it's a nice long season." 

"Not like Helsinki. I sent my clubs back home the first year."

"How long were you there?" Weber asked.

"Three years."

Weber nodded like that meant something and tossed back his coffee and took off for whatever he had to do before they hit the room for their workout. 

"I need to beef up the wardrobe if Pekka's going to drag me to places like that golf club," Steve said.

"It's hard, I don't know if I should have clothes for Nashville, you know, enough suits or whatever, or if I'm going back to Milwaukee."

A week earlier, and he'd have told Kev that he was sticking for sure, but lately Kev had been getting looks too, and Weber had seemed like he knew something. They were about due for guys to start heading to the Admirals, maybe he did know something. "You're a rookie, Kev. The rules are different for you, if you wear something a bit ordinary, everyone will think it's cute. I think I need to spend a little, put on a bit of a show."

"It's not really dragging? Pekka taking you out, is it?"

"No," Steve said, slightly surprised by the easy way he asked, how obvious they must be to him. Kev wouldn't say anything though. "No, I went pretty willingly," he added and couldn't help the laugh. 

Practice was serious business. Pekka wasn't in a joking mode; and then while most of the guys were still on the ice, Kev disappeared, and the whispers started up. The few beat reporters who watched the open practices started milling around like they scented a story. By the time Steve was in the shower, it was official, Kevin was going to Milwaukee with the rest of the prospects, while the really young guys went back to their junior teams. 

Arvidsson was still up, so was Col, and Juuse hadn't been cut yet, even though he knew he was due to start the year in the AHL. There were less than 30 of them left, and only 23 spots up for grabs. 

The guys getting cut had to come and clean out their lockers while everyone else was still hanging around. Kevin looked cool, like he was fine, but Kevin knew how to act the pro and keep it in. The word got around that they were all flying out on Sunday night, so the gang of them were planning on a night out in Nashville first.

Steve had come in with Pekka, so they left together, and he drove them back to his place without asking if Steve wanted to go home first. 

Steve dumped his clubs in his own trunk and was sorry he hadn't taken Pekka's advice and brought some things over, he didn't want to sit around in his golf clothes, so his best bet was a swimsuit. Or just stripping naked. He could see the attraction of just dropping all his clothes and any pretence with them whenever the hell he walked in Pekka's door. 

He followed Pekka inside, worrying over why he wasn't more worried about the paths his mind was wandering down. "Come here," Pekka commanded, and he followed to the same sofa they'd been on the their first night together. He looked down at his pants and really couldn't see the point of destroying another pair. He'd be happy to take them off. 

Pekka didn't look like that was the thing on his mind, unfortunately. "What's going on?" Steve said, not sitting down. He didn't know if this was about Kevin, or what it was, but it seemed serious.

"How could you do that? I don't understand. I want to, I don't want to be angry, but how could you—" he waved a hand at Steve "—be like that with Kyle."

"I have a great ass, Pekka, it's not my fault," Steve said, laughing. He hadn't even realized Pekka had noticed or that he'd been stewing over it all day while Steve had been focused on his own problems.

"You can barely stand to have me touch you without flinching, but you'll let that asshole look at you like that!"

"Because he is an asshole," Steve said, angry, white hot in an instant. And guilty, because Pekka wasn't far off in what he'd said. "He means nothing to me. You got that right, that the stupid fuck thought I was a hooker?"

"No! What? No?"

"Yeah, he was shocked when I said that about the old team, because, Pekka, no one ever looks at me and thinks I'm a hockey stud. No one ever looks at me and thinks I'm the guy paying for ass either. So I led him around by his dick for a few holes on the golf course, so what. Terry owes me a beer, now, that's all."

"So because he doesn't respect you, you act like, like, I don't know. I don't—it made me angry."

"Yeah, well, like I said, Terry owes me a beer, and then I'll tell him to keep his hands to himself."

"Would you?" Pekka said like he'd love nothing more. "I think sometimes I am just too Finnish, and I should put up with it."

"Fuck that, don't take any shit you don't want to." 

"I think this is a strange argument," Pekka said. 

"We should stop then," Steve said. "Come here," he said in his best seriously imperious tone, and then cracked his best cocky grin. 

Pekka strode over and he was right in Steve's face faster than he'd been expecting, but his arms went up, and it was easier to press his body to Pekka's and kiss him and yeah, okay, no need to ruin more pants. "I can just start dropping my pants inside the front door," he said, trying to sound aggravated.

"I like to do other things with you," Pekka said, almost offended. "I like to be with you, just together, quiet." 

"Okay, do you want to do those things, or do you want me to lose the pants? Because I didn't listen to your good advice and bring any other clothes, so maybe I should hang them up?"

Pekka pushed away and paced the empty space. He was aroused, that was as obvious as his agitation. "Do you think maybe we should—" he sighed and rubbed his face. "It's been a long time for me, since I had someone that I wanted to be with..." he sighed again and looked faintly embarrassed.

"There's nothing wrong with just hooking up for fun, Pekka. If that's what you've been doing, I'm not going to be weird about it."

"No, but it seems sometimes so shallow. You find yourself telling some guy all about how much you like his ass or something, when he can see it for himself if he has a mirror."

"Oh, so you like me for the quality of my conversation? Wow, no one's ever said that to me before."

"I'm not sure I like you at all. You're trouble." He stalked closer and they were kissing again, and Steve would really like it better if they weren't standing up, but he was dealing with it okay. Pekka shoved him away a little and looked him over, wry smile chasing his worried frown away. "I have never kissed a man in a Jokerit shirt before."

"No? That's a hell of an oversight. Some of those guys were really hot."

"And you look good in this blue. I also like you in that swimsuit."

"Good to know."

"And your shoulders are very impressive, maybe I'm a little jealous."

"We could discuss my weight lifting routine, you want to do that?" Steve said, shoving off and looking up at him. He wasn't sure if Pekka was joking or annoyed or what the problem was.

"Are we—is this." Pekka sighed. "I think I'm worrying because I'm not sure of myself."

He was flummoxed; he didn't know that was a state Pekka was ever in. "In what sense? Because I can give you a pep talk on any topic, just name it."

"You think I'm exceptional? In all areas?" He was almost grinning like he did on the ice, but there was something brittle in it too.

Steve could crack a joke, likely should, but something was up with Pekka beyond some weird jealousy. "Yeah, I do," he said, like he meant it, which he did.

" _Steve._ " Pekka turned and strode away to flop down in a chair. 

"What's up with you, Pekka?"

"I'm too old for you. I have too much money. I have friends like Terry. I'm not going to play this game in this country much longer."

Steve stared at him, and he crossed to the same part of the room and sat on the sofa opposite. He was tempted to tell Pekka to come closer, but maybe distance was what they needed. "I sort of like Terry," he said. "If he stops touching you. Maybe I won't play this game in this country for very long either. Maybe you and me are in a race to see who makes it back to Finland first, and we just don't know it. I don't care how old you are." He took a deep breath. The other two were harder. "It makes me a little uncomfortable how much money you have. Kyle pissed me off, but he's not going to be the last guy to think I suck dick well enough for a rich man to keep around. And I've never—it's never been like it is with you. I've never had sex with anyone like I do with you."

"Are we getting too serious?" Pekka asked in the tone that carried no clues for Steve to guess at Pekka's feelings on the matter.

"I don't know," Steve said. He had nothing to rely on as a guide but the truth, so he leaned on it hard. "I have strong feelings for you. Serious feelings. But, Pekka, I wasn't planning on this." He sighed. Naked really would be an easier way to approach life. "I wasn't planning on a vow of chastity either."

"Is it—it's not just that the sex works?"

"No! Jesus. No. It's the way you are. Always, like you said, doing other things." He sighed again, frustrated with his inability to really say what he felt. He ran his hand through his hair and remembered his plan to do something with it. He kept derailing his plans to be with Pekka, which should tell the guy something, but he knew why Pekka had doubts. 

"You do," Pekka said, "in case you're wondering. Give good head. Great head."

"Pekka," he said, laughing. "Let's go put on swimsuits and play by the rich man's pool. We can pretend we're both his little toys let out for the day."

"We are," Pekka said. "I'm just a guy who got a bigger tip for giving head, not the man in charge."

"The dick in charge."

"Is there going to be head? Out there by the pool? Because now I can't stop thinking about it."

"I'm easy, Pekka, you know that by now," Steve told him and got no arguments.

They lazed by the pool as the evening deepened and the scent of flowers filled the air. It had been a joke, but it made it easier to think of the pair of them as two pawns in another man's game, not as one guy with security and wealth and one without either. At least for Steve it did.

Steve was trying to decide between suggesting they eat or crawling over Pekka and sucking him until he made some damn noise when someone buzzed the front gate. 

Steve wasn't thrilled or surprised to discover their visitor was Terry. He was still in his golf clothes, and he paced around the deck, drink in hand gesticulating and retelling in detail his negotiation with Kyle that had led from the golf course to a bar Terry owned and a late lunch and eventually a signature on a contract. It was almost exactly like a hockey player telling you way too much about the woman he'd banged the night before. 

"I'd offer to write you a cheque, Steve, if I didn't think you'd be insulted," Terry said. 

Pekka bristled a little, so Steve drawled out, "Depends how big."

Terry stopped and gave him a once over, like maybe he was going to rethink and decide Steve _was_ for sale. He was—to the best hockey team that would take him. "A few thousand," Terry said cautiously.

"Oh, well. Buy me a beer sometime," Steve told him. "And there's one other thing you can do for me."

"Sure," he said and grinned over his tumbler of vodka rocks. 

"You can keep your hands to yourself with Pekka."

"I've never—we've—no, no, you have the very wrong idea. Not my type."

Steve knew that, knew exactly what his type was and found it unsettling to think about for too long. "I meant in any context, Terry."

"Oh, yeah. Sure, okay."

He looked confused, so Steve explained with, "Cultural differences."

"Yeah? How long have you guys been—" He waved a hand between them. 

"We just met, " Pekka said, amused by Steve this time. 

Terry laughed like that was the best joke ever. "Sure, right, don't want it getting out what you've been up to over in Scandinavia. I get it."

Steve sprawled out on the bed thing he was lounging on hoping he'd get pounced on and ignored Terry for a while, left him to Pekka. 

Terry was funny, charming, in a talks too much but too slow sort of way. He liked to name drop people from the music business, and he forgot they wouldn't know who the hell he was talking about. He reminded Steve of the Russian guys that hung around the hockey teams. Some of them had been as interested in his body as Terry pretended not to be. He wondered if the pretence would drop if Pekka weren't around, and he wasn't keen to find out.

Terry left eventually and they had a good time on the outdoor bed, a better time on the indoor one, and Steve lingered until it just made more sense to stay until morning. 

Kevin came over in the morning on the way to the airport. He didn't show any surprise that Steve was eating breakfast in Pekka's kitchen, just took a cup of coffee when offered and slumped onto a bar stool. "I will have to find a place to live," he said.

"See if that building Col and those guys were living in this summer has a vacancy. Get somebody to room with you, and if you get called up they can just find a new roommate," Steve suggested.

"You know, little bee, I lived there for 3 years," Pekka said.

"No? That long?" Kevin was very surprised.

"I was a little older than you, had played already years in Finland, and it was hard at first, but it's a good city. Full of regular people, not like here with everyone wanting to be famous. But you know all that. Enjoy yourself, Kevin. Play hard, but don't forget to live at the same time. Maybe I will send you some wine sometimes, to make sure you don't forget."

Kevin looked up at Pekka and glowed at being given this wisdom, and Steve wondered if he looked that awestruck when Pekka was giving him his full attention. Kevin left, promising to call, vowing to come back, and Steve told him again to find a place he wouldn't have to live in alone.


	11. Chapter 11

The Predators played a game against Columbus at home on a Tuesday night, and Steve knew it was his last chance. Coach put him with Mike Fisher and James Neal, and the message was clear, put up with the top guys or you're out. His linemates had nothing to prove, but Steve tried to make something out of his fifteen minutes on the ice. He wasn't looking for fame, just to be useful, and he wasn't sure. He really wasn't sure. But his gut was burning after like it hadn't been enough. 

He was in his car going home after the game when his phone lit, and he was tempted to ignore it, but it was either an emergency or a teammate, and with Kev gone, it was most likely Pekka. 

It was Pekka, sending him a text that said, "Come over"

He didn't answer right away and, "I missed you," followed before he could say yes. 

Steve missed him back. Pekka had spent a lot of time after the big cuts with Juuse, who they all knew was going to play the season with the Admirals like Pekka had done years before. He'd been too busy to hang out with anyone else, and practice had become too serious for fun and games. 

"On my way," Steve sent.

He found the gate open and the door unlocked, so he took his road trip suitcase into the room Pekka had given him and set it on the bed. He'd stowed it in the car days before with the idea to leave some things at Pekka's, but now it seemed like tempting fate to unpack it. He hung up his jacket and tie, rolled up his shirt sleeves and got rid of his dress shoes. 

The damn house was so big, he couldn't tell by sound where Pekka was. He wanted something to drink, so he went to the wet bar that overlooked the pool deck through a huge pane of glass and found ice and something wet. 

"Whiskey?" Pekka said from about ten feet away. The personal space bubble had shrunk a little. He could shrink it some more, and Steve would be fine, but he didn't know how to tell him that.

He turned and found Pekka in about the same state as he was, only perhaps more tired looking. "You want one?" Steve said, holding the glass up. 

"No, I'm okay." 

There were barely any lights on, just the architectural spots that showed off this bit of glass or that bit of metal. There were a couple of things that looked more like decor than art that were lit as well. The windows showed as black squares of nothingness covered in reflections of odd shapes and colours. It gave the place the air of a penthouse way up in the air. 

Steve shivered, not yet used to the air conditioning. He tossed back the whiskey and set the glass down. He almost carried it to the kitchen, also not yet used to the magic that cleaned up after him. 

He crossed the space between them, coming close enough to touch Pekka. He opened a few buttons on Pekka's shirt and leaned up to breathe in his scent. "That's good," Steve said, and Pekka finally moved and held on to him in a loose embrace, hands on his hips. "Even better."

"How do I get to best?" Pekka asked curiously.

"So competitive."

"Yes," he said. Flat truth. 

He _had_ missed Pekka. He was like a single clean path in the snow, unambiguous. It took you where you wanted to go even if you didn't know where that was. Such a relief after the uncertainty of the game. There were days yet before the final cuts would be made, and he wanted to forget that for one night. 

"Best is just you," Steve said. He used the same trick he had before, he imagined his arms being tugged up, like some space ship had him in a tractor beam or some shit. It made it easier to reach up, to tilt his head back. Pekka's hands on his ass helped too. "Do not," he said, severely, pulling away, "destroy these trousers."

"Get out of them, then."

Pekka was in a soft and gentle mood, and it was a bit strange at first, but he fell into it easy enough, lured along to wherever Pekka wanted to go. He ended up sprawled on Pekka's bed, coming apart, very, very slowly. 

"You want to fuck?" Steve said. He felt drained, sated, but just saying the words made him yearn for it. He was well past turned on, through it and blasted out the other side by too much bliss.

"Aren't you ever too tired for it?" Pekka said, amused.

"Always ready for another shift, coach," he said and laughed at the pained look on Pekka's face. "I know you like to wait, Pekka, but you don't have to wait forever."

"I just wanted to touch you, watch you. When you get like this..." He shrugged. He meant when Steve got into it and didn't hesitate or flinch or say his name like it meant stop. 

Steve liked getting like that too, maybe too much. "Well if you're feeling lazy," he said. He got up and found the lube on the floor by crawling over Pekka and hanging off the bed. 

"This position gives me ideas," Pekka said. It was giving Steve's cock the idea that it had more life to give, which had to be impossible. 

"Save your big ideas, this is my show." 

He got himself prepped, not too much like Pekka always did, and he hoped he hadn't been lying when he'd claimed he had another shift in his legs. He'd done this a grand total of once before, and only because the guy had a busted ankle. It had felt like some athletic trick, satisfying but not sexy. He slid down onto Pekka accepting the hands on his hips steadying him. "Whoa," he said. He could feel the flush run up his chest heating his face. His cock was trying very hard to get back in the game too. 

He moved in a circle, barely a shimmy, and he was in the perfect position to watch Pekka's face, picking out the subtle signs of pleasure and the tension of not enough movement and too much pressure. Steve rose up, revelling in the feel of the muscle power at his command. There really was nothing he loved more than hitting the jets and blowing the doors off some giant on the ice, and this felt like that. 

"Ah," Pekka said as Steve sank down slow and steady, showing off his control. _Ah ha_ , Steve said to himself. He kept up the pace, if anything so sedate could be called pace, and he almost laughed in delight when Pekka had to punch the mattress once, before a moan escaped from his lips. 

At some point Steve would have to speed up; his legs weren't going to last forever. It was a hell of a lot more fun than ordinary squats though. "Can you hold it?" Pekka asked. He held Steve steady with both hands on his hips, at the top of the arc he'd been describing up and down and back up again. 

"Yeah, you wanna go for it?" 

"Need to," Pekka said. 

The pounding from beneath was damn near as good as the usual method. "Yeah, fuck, Pekka, don't, don't stop. More, more, more." He wasn't going to come, no way, but it felt great, and Pekka wasn't waiting or stopping or worrying about anything but his own needs. He just pounded Steve until he was done, and lay spent and panting, leaving Steve to figure out the tricky dismount alone. 

He crashed hard.

He woke up sticky and sore and cold, and he slipped out of bed and kept on going to 'his' room which had its own bathroom. He took a shower and didn't feel like getting dressed, so he threw on a pair of underwear out of his suitcase. The second time he'd left something dirty on the floor of the closet, a laundry hamper had appeared, and whatever he put in it would appear clean and neatly folded in a drawer . It was unsettling. He collected his few belongings from the drawers and tucked them in the suitcase.

He padded out to the whatever the hell he was supposed to call the living area of the house. It was warmer than the bedrooms, and he was comfortable enough undressed. He poured a small whiskey and wandered around, feeling at sea. He didn't know if he should be planning on playing or practising his pressbox gameface. He didn't know if he should go home or move the fuck in. Or get ready to move to Milwaukee with Kevin.

It was still dark out, dark enough that the windows were showing him the reflected expanse of Pekka's house, warped and inverted. He didn't know the time. If it were a bit later, light out, he could swim, clean his mind, work the stiffness from his legs. 

It had been strange, fucking like that, clear-headed and in charge. He'd been more aware of it all, how much it physically felt good to have Pekka inside him. He'd known that obviously, objectively he _liked_ it, but he'd never really thought about how much of that liking was his body and how much was other things, what it all meant. Maybe he was overthinking. Maybe it was the look on Pekka's face that had made it so good. 

He couldn't sort it out. Had never sorted it out. It wasn't just in bed he liked being—he didn't even know the words. Whatever it was that he felt when Pekka put his hands on him and pushed him around. 

The reflection in the window showed motion before he heard anything, a shadow across the smear of red that was a large painting on the wall behind him. Steve took a sip of his whiskey and watched the shadow slink up on him like a cat hunting prey. He closed his eyes just as Pekka was close enough for Steve to feel his heat. Pekka had him wrapped up and snuggled in tight before he could think to react. It was instinct that made him tense a little, but he settled quick. 

Pekka was warm—Steve hadn't known he was cold until he wasn't any more. "I love the way you touch me," he said. 

Pekka was silent for too long, and he risked opening his eyes to see why, but the dawn had come and stolen the reflections away. All he could see was the barest hint of a shape, their entwined bodies he guessed, and it looked like they were floating over the deck, over the pool. They'd fall in if he didn't hold on tight. 

Steve tilted his head in invitation, and Pekka was a bit easy too, he bent and nuzzled at his neck and his hands moved lower. "I even like how you chew on me." The shadow faded as the sky grew light, and the outdoors beckoned. It would be warmer outside, warm enough to swim or play in the embrace of the concealing greenery. It might be early enough for the scent of the night-blooming flowers to linger. He could talk Pekka into starting up the sauna; they had time before they had to go in for practice. 

"You want to come outside with me?" Steve said. He squirmed around so he could look up at Pekka. He had such a compelling face, like a statue come to life, even with his hair sticking up like a little boy's. Steve reached up to smooth it down, and Pekka caught his hand and held it next to his face. Steve felt flushed again, like he had the night before. He was grinning though, not of his own volition, and he was startled at the force of the smile he got in return. 

"You want to watch the sun come up?" Pekka said, voice husky and dark like he was still in the world of nighttime. 

"You can't see the sunrise from there can you?"

"Not really, too many houses in the way, but you can feel it, feel the heat seep into your body." 

"I don't need the sun when you're close." Steve almost laughed, it was such a line, but he'd meant it. "Coffee would be good though. I don't usually drink first thing in the morning." He raised his now empty glass. 

"It was still dark when you poured that. This is a new day. And yes, Steve, I will turn the sauna on for you." 

"I hadn't even asked!" Steve said. Pekka kissed him on the top of the head, and wandered off in the direction of the kitchen. "I was going to offer sexual favours, but now I'm not," Steve called after him.

"Oh yes you are," Pekka said, voice still dark.

"Yeah, okay. I think I'm easy for you, Pekka," Steve said. He slipped outside into a softly humid morning and waited, back to the door, for Pekka to come and wrap him up and hold him steady. 

They told him at practise. First thing.

He couldn't really remember the conversation after, what had been said. Promises or platitudes. None of it mattered. All that mattered was he wasn't going to Columbus to play the next game, he was going to Milwaukee with Juuse Saros on the next flight out. 

Juuse had been kept up longer than normal for the number three goalie, a sign of success. Steve could only see signs of failure from where he was standing. 

He walked into a locker room full of the usual chaos, and headed for his spot. The team could sort out his equipment; he was only worried about a handful of his things that were in his stall and in his locker. 

He wanted to hit something, scream, cry, make Pekka hold him up until he could walk unaided, but he couldn't. He had to brazen it out. He'd been doing it his whole life, playing bigger than he was, making people take him seriously as a hard man, a tough guy. He had to do that with these guys, with Arvidsson who wasn't cut, who'd won the contest to be the one small winger the team could find a use for. He was coming back, and they all needed to be ready for him, to know how tough he was.

He got his phone and made a call, not really expecting to get an answer. "Kev!" he said, louder than he needed to, but not too obvious. "Didn't think you'd pick up. How's it going?"

"Good, okay. Like I expected. Lots of guys I know."

"You find a place to live yet?"

"Yes, I took your advice, and this building is okay. They have places furnished, you know. Nothing special, but it is good for now."

"Good, good. You have a roommate yet?" Steve didn't look up, but he heard the room get quieter. Juuse was over talking to Pekka, the familiar sound of Finnish making him wonder how you could ache so much for a place that had never felt like home. Kev was talking, cursing, getting worked up. Steve said, trying to sound cool like an action hero facing down the final villain, "German is a really colourful language, Kevin. I had no idea."

" _Steve_ ," Kevin said, and he sounded devastated, and Steve couldn't have that, no one here was devastated. This was a setback, nothing more, or maybe it was more, maybe it was an opportunity to get the small-ice game inside his head where he needed it, and if he could sell himself on that idea, he was going to survive all this. Kevin took a noisy breath and said, "I was going to ask Viktor, if, you know, but—Steve, how is this—"

"So is that a yes, or do I need to find somewhere else to crash?"

"Oh course it's yes," Kevin said, outraged. 

Steve could imagine his scowl, and the smile became easier to force onto his face. "You're sure? Like about everything?"

"I am sure. You will come, we will kick ass, we will not bother to take names because we will be back in Nashville before they have time to regret this bullshit too much, yes?" Kevin had obviously seen some of the same movies. 

"Yeah, Kev, damn right. I'll call you when I roll into town, okay, tell the guys to save me a seat at Carson's."

He ended the call, and collected his stuff, shook some hands—Weber and Hodgson, who looked genuinely sorry to see him go, and Fisher who asked his God to bless him on Steve's way out the door. Steve didn't think any god cared much about him or his petty problems, but Fisher's heart was in the right place.

He packed up his stuff at his apartment quick and easy—he'd barely lived there, nothing had had time to get lost. Nothing but his suitcase sitting on the bed in Pekka's house. He got a text with a time for his flight and he had hours to kill, so he packed what he was taking with him, drove down to Broadway, found the tackiest tourist-trap saloon and had a beer, a burger and listened to some nobody sing their heart out trying to be a star in Music City. 

He had texts piled up on his phone by the time he'd sat through a full set of heartbreak and bad decisions, and he didn't feel like talking to anybody beyond his agent, who hadn't had anything useful to say. 

He owed Pekka a proper goodbye. He owed himself that too, but what he really wanted was to beg for sanctuary in the Embassy, refuse to come out until the world gave him what he wanted. But he couldn't do that; he wasn't entitled to live in that magic world, he could only visit. 

He texted Pekka and told him when he was coming over. He'd left himself too little time to fall into temptation. Mere daylight wasn't enough protection anymore.

The gate was open, the door unlocked, and Pekka was looking out at his magical grotto, whiskey glass in hand. "Steve," Pekka said. Not like it meant stop, not in despair either, just soft and simple and clear like a path through the snow. 

"I have to get my stuff," Steve said, and he did that, pushed through to 'his' room without stopping. It took him two minutes to find everything. Some whim made him stuff the dark blue swimsuit into his suitcase too, laying claim to it, a piece of the magic world to take with him, to prove it was real when he was playing games in places he didn't even know the names of. 

He went back out and Pekka was ready for him. He took the suitcase out of Steve's hands and set it near the door, and then he imperiously led him to a chair and pushed him down. Pekka sat on an ottoman, putting himself low to the floor and at a loss as to what to do with his legs at first. It was funny, almost as good as Pekka on the putting green, and Steve discovered his lips still knew how to smile.

"You will look after Kevin," Pekka said. "I know I don't have to ask, but Juuse? Will you watch out for him? He remembers you, you know. Talks about how tough you were to stop."

"Yeah? He's tough to get past too." Steve looked at Pekka, his almost strange face, with the bud of a smile always waiting to bloom, his eyes sad. Finns gave in to despair too much, and he didn't want to see Pekka like that. "I'll look after him for you, Pekka. And Kevin and me, we'll sort ourselves out. We'll be back here buzzing around you before you have a chance to miss us."

"I worry about you a little, even if I know you don't want me to do that. It's a hard life, playing there. I won't lie to you—I hated it many days. Harder for me to make friends in those days with such bad English."

"I know some people," Steve said, thinking of Col and the boys. And Al. Pete.

"I am not asking you to—I am not asking for anything," Pekka said. 

"Things like that don't seem so important right now," Steve said. "And I'm not asking for anything either Pekka. You're right, you have to live as well as play this game. My mom tried to tell me that, and she was right." 

"I'm not sure if I would want anyone else," Pekka said, ending their delicate talking around the issue with a clean, sharp cut. 

Steve was sure. He was sure Pekka had ruined him for anyone else for a good long time. 

"I will send you wine," Pekka said. "Tough stuff that you can handle, maybe not so much for Kevin. But you will drink it, and live as if you are here. Oh!" Pekka got up and strode off tossing an, "I nearly forgot," over his shoulder. He came back with a dogeared pamphlet and handed it over. "I checked, it is still there. Serious place for serious men." 

Steve looked first at Pekka's amused and expectant face, and then looked down at the brochure for a gym. In Milwaukee. He flipped it over and saw the word sauna in the list of amenities. "Really? You found a sauna in Milwaukee?" Pekka was pleased that he was pleased, eyes sparkling with it, and that was the man boiled down to essentials. 

"I have to go," Steve said, and he stood, unable to do anything else to make Pekka pleased with him except reach up and kiss him once more, brush his soft hair smooth.

He was at his car, shoving the suitcase in the trunk with the others, when Pekka called out to him. "Steven!" He looked up, and Pekka said, "Kempele is beautiful in the summer!"

"Yeah? I might check that out. I hear Nashville's nice in the winter though. I'll be back to find out for myself." 

Just as soon as he'd proved he had what it takes to make it there, he'd be back.

* * *

**Notes:**

Title of the story is taken from the Waylon Jennings' song _Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way_. The original is fine, but I love this delightful Morrissey cover even more (sound quality is a little iffy).


End file.
